Third Regiment: Memoirs of an Iraqi Prisoner of War Doctor – 12

By Mojtaba al-Hosseini
Translated into Farsi by: Mohammad Hossein Zavar Kabeh
Translated into English by: M.B. Khoshnevisan

2026-1-4

Third Regiment: Memoirs of an Iraqi Prisoner of War Doctor – 12

By Mojtaba al-Hosseini
Translated into Farsi by: Mohammad Hossein Zavar Kabeh
Translated into English by: M.B. Khoshnevisan

***

The Ba'athist doctors and medics replied, "Don't trouble yourself because of him. We also need blood."

I fell silent for a moment. Oh God, what should I do? On one hand, these people were opposing me, and on the other hand, he was a Muslim and wounded. I was at a loss. Should I stand by and watch him die? Finally, I broke the silence and said to them, "We bear a humanitarian responsibility. This man is wounded and needs our assistance. Moreover, he is a prisoner and likely possesses information that could be useful to our forces."

They stared at each other for a while, then said, "The doctor is right."

They rushed to help me immediately. We finally figured it out, and I gave him two units of blood. An hour later, he came to and muttered words in Persian that I couldn’t understand. I called for the medic, Abu Asam, who was from Kifri and spoke Persian fluently. He translated the prisoner’s words for us. The captive asked, sounding stunned, “Who are you? Where is this? Why am I here?”

Once he had mostly recovered, I sent him to the military hospital in Basra. After a week, I was able to check on his status through one of the religious medics. This medic let me know that the prisoner had surgery and was staying in the wounded detainee room.

More than a month after the war began, our forces had called off the offensive and dug into fortified trenches, taking up a defensive position. The initiative had shifted to the Iranian side. That false sense of excitement and victory that the government's propaganda media had instilled in the troops was gone. From then on, soldiers of all ranks began asking each other questions: What's the real reason we started this war? Why are we occupying Iranian territory? And where are those massive numbers of Iranian troops the regime claimed were about to invade Iraq? These questions, and others like them, were a natural reaction from the Iraqi soldiers to the regime's justifications for starting the war against Iran—justifications which claimed they were acting to repel an Iranian invasion, push Iranian artillery back from border cities, and reclaim Iraqi occupied lands. So, what did the Iraqi soldiers figure out after all that time at war? A few key things. First, when they rolled into Iranian territory, they weren't exactly facing a fully equipped, battle-ready army. Second, while they claimed they were just out to free their own occupied lands, they not only kept pushing deeper into Iran but also ended up seizing vast chunks of Iranian territory. Third, they pushed so far in that they were way beyond the range of Iranian artillery. Fourth, Iraq went ahead and occupied hundreds of villages and several Iranian cities—places like Khorramshahr, Mehran, Qasr-e Shirin, and Bostan. They even started swapping out the Persian names with Arabic ones. They basically administered these cities as part of their own border provinces, hoisted their flag over government buildings, and in cities like Khorramshahr, Bostan, and Hoveyzeh, they set up schools, state-run markets, and medical centers. I saw the new map Iraq printed and distributed back then with my own eyes. On that map, the occupied Iranian cities and territories were straight-up annexed into Iraq. And it was no secret that the Iraqi regime was also eyeing cities like Shoosh, Dezful, Ahvaz, and Abadan for their next update.

Despite all these expansionist moves, Saddam was still claiming that Iran intended to occupy Iraq. These events and actions completely exposed the Iraqi regime's lies and proved that this war wasn't about defending Iraq's territorial integrity at all—it was purely about invading Iran. These realities sank in with our troops, sapping their motivation to keep fighting. They didn't show any of that eagerness for battle they had in the war's earliest days.

Once again Jofeir

On October 16, 1980, they sent me with a mobile medical unit to Base "B" of the 20th Brigade. Dr. "Naeem" had arrived there a few days before me. This base was located between the Jofeir area and Hamid Garrison—specifically, about one kilometer west of Hamid Garrison. The command of this base was held by Staff Colonel "Adnan." He had taken for himself the only fortified bunker in the area, while the men under his command were out in the middle of the desert, taking shelter in ditches to protect themselves from Iranian airstrikes.

In the afternoons, the sun would beat down on Hamid Garrison. The garrison consisted of eight large seven-story buildings. In the middle, water towers and storage tanks reached for the sky. The next morning, after having breakfast by the fortified shelters next to the ambulance parked in a deep ditch, we sat and started talking. At 7:10 AM, we were attacked by two fighter jets. One of the planes dropped its bombs on the defense and mission unit, while the other dropped its bombs directly on us. I saw the bombs speeding toward the ground—a scene I had only ever seen in movies before. This bombing run, which fortunately didn’t cause any casualties, left us terrified. As soon as the bombs hit the ground, their explosions created huge craters. An hour later, Lieutenant Colonel Rahman, Major Mahdi, and I took a souvenir photo of those deep craters.

That evening, Staff Colonel Adnan called me to his bunker. After drinking coffee and the usual small talk, he took a few smaller cases containing photos and ID cards out of his black briefcase.

As I looked them over carefully, I realized they belonged to the pilot prisoners who had been captured some time earlier. Among the other items in the cases were several small, green pocket Qurans with Persian designs and patterns, along with photos of the pilots' wives wearing Islamic hijab. I felt that the Quran and the hijab were messages of the Islamic Revolution and represented the identity of the Muslim people of Iran. I asked Staff Colonel Adnan, "Did you also happen to find the keys to paradise with them?"

He answered, "No."

I knew they searched the prisoners' chests and necks looking for those so-called keys. In reality, the "keys to paradise" were a rumor that Iraqi propaganda media had spread to mock Imam Khomeini and the Revolution. They kept claiming that Khomeini was hanging these keys around the necks of Iranian soldiers to boost their morale. The truth was, they were trying to pass off the book "Mafatih al-Jinan"[1], which was commonly carried by Iranian forces, as these "keys to paradise."

[1] This book is one of the collections of supplications used by Shia Muslims; even some of our own people carried it with them.

Share