Halil Kut (1881 – 20 August 1957) was an Ottoman Turkish military commander and politician. He served in the Ottoman army during World War I, notably taking part in the military campaigns against Russia in the Caucasus and the British in Mesopotamia. His greatest achievement was surrounding the British expeditionary force in Kut, for 163 days until they surrendered. Halil was responsible for numerous atrocities committed against Armenian and Assyrian civilians during the war, overseeing the massacres of Armenian men, women and children in Bitlis, Mush, and Beyazit. Many of the victims were buried alive in specially prepared ditches. He also crossed into neighboring Persia and massacred Armenians, Assyrians and Persians. Kut claimed in his memoirs that he personally killed "more or less" 300,000 Armenians. During a meeting at Yerevan in the summer of 1918, he declared to a group of Armenians that he had "endeavored to wipe out the Armenian nation to the last individual." Early life and military career Halil graduated from the War Academy (Staff College) in Constantinople in 1905 and received a commission with the rank of Distinguished Captain (Mümtaz Yüzbaşı). For three years following his graduation he served in the Third Army in Macedonia. When the constitutional order was restored in 1908, the government sent him to Iran to organize dissidence against the Shah whom Persia had installed during the Persian Constitutional Revolution. After the countercoup of 13 April 1909, he was recalled and became the commander of the Imperial Guard. Initially he was sent to Salonika to command the mobile gendarmerie units in the region and was involved in fighting insurgents and bandits prior to the Balkan Wars. He also commanded a unit during Balkan Wars. He was among the group of young officers sent to Libya (Trablusgarp) in 1911 to organize the defense against the Italian invasion during the Italo-Turkish War. Before World War I, he served as the commander of a gendarmerie regiment in Van. World War I When the Ottoman empire entered World War I, Kut was serving in the Ottoman High Command in Constantinople. He was the military commander of the Istanbul Vilayat between January and December 1914. He later served as a division commander in the Ottoman Third Army on the Russian border, as part of the Caucasus Campaign. Later, he was one of the senior commanders of the Ottoman forces in Mesopotamia, now Iraq, during World War I.