Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic by Michael Axworthy

Author:Michael Axworthy
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781846142925
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2013-03-06T23:00:00+00:00

The Islands of Madness

In the second part of February 1984 the Iranians launched their biggest offensive so far, in three phases – Operations Fajr-5 and -6, and Khaibar. All were aimed at cutting the highway between Baghdad and Basra – the first two aimed broadly towards the town of Kut al-Amara, and the last into the marshland further south. All told, the offensives are thought to have involved as many as 300,000 men on the Iranian side. The initial attacks achieved some gains in ground, but their main purpose was to draw Iraqi reserves away from the Howeizeh marshes, toward which the main attack began on 22 February. The Iraqis had regarded the marshes as an impassable obstacle for troop movements, but the Iranians used small boats, large numbers of helicopters and temporary bridges to swarm into them. Once there, they could fight on a more equal basis because Iraqi armour could only operate in restricted parts of the marsh region, and the Iranians could make the most of the experience they had gained with infantry assault tactics. The Iranians succeeded in taking the Majnun Islands (‘Majnun’ means mad or crazy) on 27 February – artificial islands in the marshes created by oil industry development – and held them despite repeated Iraqi counter-attacks in the early part of March, including air attacks with mustard gas bombs, and possibly Tabun or Sarin nerve gas. They nearly took Qurna on the vital Baghdad–Basra road on 29 February. Although possession of the islands did not enable the Iranians to cut the Baghdad–Basra road as they had intended, it did bring them tantalizingly close. But the cost was heavy – one estimate suggests that 20,000 Iranians died, and 7,000 Iraqis. 111 The following accounts come from two young Basijis who were captured:

About a thousand of us came across in small rubber dinghies to attack twenty Iraqi positions in the lakes area which were easy to take. We captured the enemy troops who gave up without fighting and looked very frightened when we landed and attacked them. I think the sight of so many young boys scared them. It’s true, you know, that they’re afraid when they see hundreds of boys running at them. We have no fear because a ten-year-old boy doesn’t understand what he’s doing when he runs toward enemy soldiers. We finished the mission and were about to return to Iran when Iraqi soldiers surrounded us … We tried to defend ourselves to let as many of our side get away as possible. As the Iraqis closed in, I was hit in the stomach – the bullet went in one side and came out the other. I thought I was going to die. I dug with my hands into the sand bank where I was and crawled into the hole and waited. After a while I heard voices speaking Arabic coming closer and closer and then they were in front of me and one of them dropped a rock on my helmet. They pulled me out of the sand and I surrendered.

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