Kut

Kut has a hot desert climate (BWh) in the Köppen–Geiger climate classification system. Most rain falls in the winter. The average annual temperature in Kut is {{convert|23.4|°C|1}}. About {{convert|138|mm|2|abbr=on}} of precipitation falls annually.

{{Weather box|width=auto

|metric first=y

|single line=y

|location = Kut

|Jan high C = 17.5

|Feb high C = 20.0

|Mar high C = 24.0

|Apr high C = 29.8

|May high C = 36.9

|Jun high C = 41.5

|Jul high C = 43.5

|Aug high C = 43.8

|Sep high C = 40.8

|Oct high C = 35.0

|Nov high C = 26.2

|Dec high C = 19.2

| year high C =

|Jan mean C = 11.2

|Feb mean C = 13.2

|Mar mean C = 17.0

|Apr mean C = 23.1

|May mean C = 31.3

|Jun mean C = 34.3

|Jul mean C = 35.8

|Aug mean C = 35.4

|Sep mean C = 32.0

|Oct mean C = 26.5

|Nov mean C = 17.9

|Dec mean C = 12.6

| year mean C =

|Jan low C = 5.5

|Feb low C = 6.9

|Mar low C = 10.7

|Apr low C = 15.6

|May low C = 21.0

|Jun low C = 24.4

|Jul low C = 26.4

|Aug low C = 25.9

|Sep low C = 22.5

|Oct low C = 17.4

|Nov low C = 11.8

|Dec low C = 7.0

| year low C =

|rain colour = green

|Jan rain mm = 32

|Feb rain mm = 23

|Mar rain mm = 19

|Apr rain mm = 27

|May rain mm = 7

|Jun rain mm = 0

|Jul rain mm = 0

|Aug rain mm = 0

|Sep rain mm = 0

|Oct rain mm = 5

|Nov rain mm = 18

|Dec rain mm = 22

|year rain mm = 153

| Jan humidity = 69

| Feb humidity = 60

| Mar humidity = 56

| Apr humidity = 48

| May humidity = 34

| Jun humidity = 24

| Jul humidity = 25

| Aug humidity = 24

| Sep humidity = 24

| Oct humidity = 34

| Nov humidity = 54

| Dec humidity = 72

| year humidity =40

|source 1 = Arab Meteorology Book{{cite web

| url = http://extras.springer.com/2007/978-1-4020-4577-6/Book_Shahin_ISBN_9781402045776_Appendix.pdf

| title = Appendix I: Meteorological Data

| publisher = Springer

| access-date = 14 October 2024

| archive-date = March 4, 2016

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160304072830/http://extras.springer.com/2007/978-1-4020-4577-6/Book_Shahin_ISBN_9781402045776_Appendix.pdf

| url-status = dead

}}

|date=14 October 2024

}}

File:مدينة واسط الاثرية.jpg

The medieval city of Madharaya was at the site of modern Kut.Le Strange (1905), pp. 38, 60El-Samarraie (1970), p. 29 It lay at the point where the Nahrawan Canal flowed out into the Tigris. Madharaya has been identified as the hometown of the Sasanian-era Zoroastrian religious leader Mazdak.Madelung (1988), p. 3 By the early 1200s, however, Yaqut al-Hamawi wrote that Madharaya was in ruins.

File:Al kut doom.jpg

Modern Kut owes much of its prosperity to the advent of steamboat transportation on the Tigris in the 1800s.

{{Main|Siege of Kut}}

File:Townshend, Khalil Pasha after Fall of Kut B.jpg, Khalil Pasha and other unidentified officers after the surrender of the Kut garrison in 1916]]

Kut was the scene of a fierce battle during World War I. The British Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force, led by Major General Charles Townshend, marched north from Basra in September 1915 in what became known as the Mesopotamian Campaign. They reached Kut on September 26, where after three days of fighting they drove the Ottoman forces from the town.

After a halt of nearly nine months, Townshend then headed up river to Ctesiphon. Following a battle there, the British forces withdrew back to Kut. On December 7, 1915, the Turks, under their commander, Colonel Nureddin Pasha, arrived at Kut and began a siege that lasted 147 days. The British cavalry under Colonel Gerard Leachman succeeded in breaking out, but Townshend and the bulk of the force remained besieged. Many attempts were made to relieve Townshend's forces, but all were defeated. Some 23,000 British and Indian soldiers died in the attempts to retake Kut, probably the worst loss of life for the British away from the European theater. Near the end of the siege, T. E. Lawrence and Aubrey Herbert of British Intelligence unsuccessfully tried to bribe Khalil Pasha to allow the troops to escape. Townshend, with some 8,000 surviving soldiers, finally surrendered Kut on April 29, 1916. The captured soldiers were divided, where the officers were sent to separate facilities, and many of the enlisted soldiers were impressed into hard labour until the surrender of the Ottoman Empire; more than half of them died. The British went back on the offensive in December 1916 with a larger and better-supplied force under General Sir Frederick Stanley Maude and with steep casualties retook Kut on February 23, 1917.

Kut suffered heavy damage during the First World War, and was almost entirely rebuilt afterward.

The Kut Barrage was constructed in the city in the 1930s to provide irrigation water for the surrounding area. The barrage supports a road and includes a lock for boats passing up and down the Tigris. Its purpose is to maintain a sufficiently high water level in the Tigris to provide water for the Gharraf irrigation canal.

In 1952, {{convert|26440|ha|acre|abbr=off}} were irrigated from water provided by the Gharraf Canal. Of this newly reclaimed land, {{convert|14080|ha|acre|abbr=off}} was distributed to small farmers as part of a social land reform program. These farmers received {{convert|10|ha|acre|abbr=off}} per family and were required to live on the land they farmed. In 2005, repairs and maintenance works were carried out at the Kut Barrage and the Gharraf Head Regulator for a total cost of US$3 million.

File:Delta Tour DVIDS239459.jpg

In the early 21st century, the Contingency Operating Base (COB) Delta was an American military installation located on the right bank of the Tigris southwest from Kut. Designated as a Forward operating base (FOB) in the early stages of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Delta was centered on a former Iraqi Air Force base, Ubaydah Bin Al Jarrah Air Base. In 2005 Delta was selected to become an "enduring" FOB, remaining open after other FOBs had closed.{{cite web|url=http://www.stripes.com/news/fob-delta-not-just-enduring-it-s-growing-1.87915|title=FOB Delta not just enduring – it's growing}} During the Operation Iraqi Freedom, FOB Delta was

manned by Polish, Kazakhstan, El Salvadorian, Georgian, Lithuanian, British, and US Multi-National Forces. Sometime after 2009 the FOB was re-designated as a COB.{{cite web|url=https://www.dvidshub.net/news/72302/saber-squadron-arrives-cob-delta#.VZGUfBtVhBc|title=Saber Squadron arrives at COB Delta}} COB Delta was closed on October 24, 2011 and officially turned over to the IAF in a handover ceremony that afternoon in the main flight line hangar/terminal. Later that evening, approximately 2,200, the last Force Pro civilians flew out by helicopter.{{citation needed|date=July 2022}}

• Anglo-Iraqi War
• List of places in Iraq
• List of United States Military installations in Iraq

{{Reflist}}

• {{Cite book |last=Le Strange |first=Guy |title=The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate: Mesopotamia, Persia, and Central Asia, from the Moslem Conquest to the Time of Timur |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1905 |oclc=458169031 |url=https://archive.org/details/b2935321x}}
• {{cite book |last=Madelung |first=Wilferd |title=Religious Trends in Early Islamic Iran |date=1988 |publisher=Bibliotheca Persica |location=Albany |isbn=0-88706-701-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ehrk8ckWNYoC}}
• {{cite book |last1=El-Samarraie |first1=Husam Quam |title=Agriculture in Iraq During the 3rd Century, A.H. |date=1970 |publisher=University of London |location=London |url=https://core.ac.uk/display/161528248?recSetID= |access-date=12 March 2020}}

{{Commons category-inline|Al Kut}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20090917144042/http://www.iraqimage.com/pages/browse/Al_Kut.html Iraq Image - Al Kut Satellite Observation]

{{Districts of Iraq}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:Populated places in Wasit Governorate

Category:District capitals of Iraq

Category:Cities in Iraq