The 370th Night of Memories -3

Edited by Iranian Oral History Website
Translated by Mandana Karimi

2025-9-10

The 370th Night of Memories program was held on July 24th 2025 with the theme of "Muharram on the Front" in the Soura Hall of the Hozeh Honari. In this program, Reza Afsharnejad, Seyyed Saleh Mousavi, and Ramin Asgari recounted their memories. The performance of this Night of Memories was led by Davoud Salehi.

Another memory of the first narrator of the program, Reza Afsharnejad, was about the Karbala 8 operation in Shalamcheh. The narrator said: The Karbala 8 operation was carried out after the Karbala 5 operation and was considered a small operation in terms of area; but in terms of intensity, it was one of the intense operations. Unfortunately, at the end of the operation, our children did not achieve much success. That is, at the end of the operation, we were forced to return to the same point of liberation and even a little further back.

The narrator continued: The two battalions, "Shahadat" and "Meysam" from the 27th Division of Muhammad Rasulullah (PBUH), were on their way back. The commander of the Shahadat Battalion was Hajj Akbar Atefi, and the commander of the Meysam Battalion was Hajj Asghar Arsanjani. According to the words of martyr Kazemi, Hajj Asghar Arsanjani had taken off his plate the day before and thrown it into the fish canal. This meant that we would not return. Regarding the manner of his martyrdom, I must say that the Iraqi Presidential Guard had stormed and entered the double-walled embankment. The Iraqis had large bodies, and our 15-16 year old Basij children were like children! They had no resemblance at all. We had to fight them from a distance.

I remember going up the embankment. They were so close that I could throw grenades at their faces like rocks. That is, I didn’t even have time to pull the trigger of the grenade. In that situation, some people were martyred and some were retreating. From a distance of 40, 50 meters, I saw Hajj Asghar Arsanjani with 3-4 of his troops - who were now couriers or radio operators (this is my guess). They looked like four or five lions with a huge pack of hyenas surrounding them and attacking them. They were fighting like lions and killing the Iraqis. But they were 4-5 people and the Iraqis were about 200-300 commandos of the Presidential Guard. Those were the last moments of Hajj Asghar Arsanjani and his companions, whose bodies were never found. However, in the definitions that have been given, they said something different. But the essence of Hajj Asghar’s martyrdom was like this.

The narrator gave his last memory of the Karbala 5 operation as follows: The operation itself was one of the largest and most adventurous operations of the war. I will tell you a part of it. Karbala 5 began on January 9, 1987. On January 10, I was assigned to guide a group of demolition workers. I had to take them through the Martyrdom Road, parallel to the Fish Canal, and take them to the embankments of the Fish Canal, right in front of the Noni fortifications.[1] Because there was an army on the other side that was supposed to come and shake hands with us. Unfortunately, they had not been able to come forward. That is why we were flanked. We had a so-called wing. In order for the Iraqis to not be able to infiltrate, they ordered to lay a minefield there. I took the guys from the demolition team and took them there. We also planned to go in the dark. Because the Martyrdom Road, despite its greatness, was visible to the enemy from two directions. But here the enemy was in sight from three directions; that is, the sparrows were jumping, they were hitting. The children started laying the minefield. It was towards the end of their work that the heavy shelling began at the end of the night of 11st of January in Karbala 5, which according to the commanders was one of the hardest shelling of Karbala 5. At that time, the Shahadah Battalion of the 27th Division was in charge of the line.

Our work was almost finished; but no fighter leaves the line when there is intense fighting and shelling, saying, "My mission is accomplished." We stayed. The children were doing whatever they could behind the embankment. Shooting, RPGs, etc. I myself saw the gunner and his assistant martyred. He had only 2-3 full magazines. I started shooting with that gun. The children's ammunition was running out. A boat had come from us 40-50 meters away. There was a lot of ammunition, honey, biscuits and chocolate wafers, which they called "Yum Yum" at that time, in the boat. No one could go and get that ammunition. Every moment a flower would bloom. This Shalamcheh soil was like water in a kettle from the excessive rain of cannons and mortars. I was very tired. I had eaten a few small fragments of a trap. I sat down in a foxhole to relieve my fatigue.

Suppose a generous person gives a party and invites the elders. Now a broken-horned person like me also attends that party. He is also received in the same way as the elders were received. Why? Because both the host is generous and the guests are noble. So the fact that I want to tell you was not because I had any importance; but because of the breath of the warriors and the souls of the martyrs. For a second or two, it gave me a feeling; It was as if we were seeing the kingdom of heaven. In Karbala 5, the night was clear and starry. It was as if the white stripes were like the descent of angels or the ascension of martyrs.

I was in this state for two or three seconds. All that loud gunfire could not be heard. For two or three seconds, there was absolute silence. I was lost in the sight of this strip of light. I came to my senses again and again it was the same hail of bullets and all that. The difference was that whatever sadness, sorrow and fear I had in me had all disappeared. A special joy had come over me. So I went and calmly brought those ammunition and biscuits. I thought that this state had only happened to me. Whoever I wanted to give these wafers to, their faces would smile when I saw them. That is, I saw that peace in the faces of each and every fighter. It was clear that this state had happened to everyone at that moment.

If you have heard, His Eminence [Ayatollah Khamenei] said in one of his speeches that the nights of Karbala 5 were the nights of Laylat al-Qadr. I swear by the spirits of the soil of the martyrs in the literal sense. We did not feel the descent of the angels and the spirit there with our whole being, but we felt it with our whole being. In Karbala 5, we saw this ascension of the martyrs. It was a special state. Until the morning when I was injured and my comrades took me by boat, these states were prevalent and ongoing in all of us.

To be continued…