Iraq's Movements Before Start of the War

Narrated by Ali Tahayyori

Selected by Fariba Almasi
Translated by Ruhollah Golmoradi

2024-9-5

The First Narrative: Beginning of Iraq's Movements in a Serious Confrontation with the Islamic Regime

As the Imam had ordered, we sought to pursue the path of providing military training to various people, in line with creating the 20-million Army he intended. Imam used to say that we should move toward forming a public mobilization and make it so strong that no superpower in the world can covet our Islamic homeland, our religion and our Ummah. He even emphasized that our Basij should be strong enough to defend Muslims and the oppressed of other countries.

Relying on these guidelines, my friends and I had the issue of education seriously on the agenda and we kept expanding it to new centers and barracks until I had to travel to Iraq with Martyr Shahramfar.

The story was that the general staff had received information that the Iraqi army had started a series of suspicious movements and was trying to create changes in the region. Among them, they brought weapons day and night to the western regions of the country and distributed them among the border residents. As I said, at that time, I was a member of the army (Artesh). General Officer Mr. Shadmehr was also commander of the general staff. Martyr Shahramfar and I went to him and stated, “According to the news and reports, let us travel to the region and check the conditions and recognize what changes are taking place in the region.” It was early spring of 1980 and the weather was still very cold and snowy in many parts of the country as we encountered a heavy storm on the way to the west of the country and after passing through Hamadan; so, we had to return to Hamadan and spend the night there.

The next morning, we left for Ilam city again. We reached this city around noon and that night we were guests of Ilam Governorate. The next day, we crossed the border and went to Iraq with the help and cooperation of local agents who secretly cooperated with the [Islamic Republic] regime and were able to travel between Iraq and Iran. For more than three months in this country and in very difficult and exhausting conditions, we investigated. We were living in very bad conditions both during the day and at night. During these days, we also faced a lot of dangers and sometimes we were about to be detected, arrested and even died. But all in all, God graced us and gave us the opportunity for a relatively long time examine and record directly all the movements, maneuvers and actions of the Iraqi army.

Then we returned to the country and presented a detailed report of our observations and of course our own analysis and evaluations. In this comprehensive report, while reviewing all actions and movements, we stated that the region will be a hotbed of intense conflict and war. In fact, in those three months, we closely touched these war conditions and it was almost clear to us that Iraq intends to attack our country. In our report, we even clearly pointed out and emphasized that Saddam intends to conflict with the Islamic Republic of Iran, and this is quite evident considering the weapons that are brought to the region especially at night. These weapons were distributed among the people in areas such as Khuzestan, Dasht-e Mehran and Dehloran. Our assessment was that by arming the people of that region and causing discontent with the Islamic Republic regime, they intend to absorb the people of parts of our country. It was clear that Iraq had planned to use these armed people in the future to support its army. Of course, we should not ignore this important point that a part of the counter-revolutionary forces was also present in this area and obtained a good share of these weapons; such as the counter-revolutionaries who infiltrated the Arab people of Khuzestan, Fadai Guerrillas and Monafeghin (hypocrites).

We mentioned all these things in our report, but unfortunately, the report was strangely neglected. Even after presentation of this report, a meeting was held at the general staff in which Bani-Sadr, Mr. Shadmehr, General Officer Zahirnejad, martyr Falahi, and a relatively large number of AJA’s generals were present. There were many debates about our report and in addition to the written report, we also presented a detailed oral report and explanations. But unfortunately, I don't know why some friends argued that Iraq does not dare to attack our country by saying that, “Iraq is doing wrong. If we throw a spit on their face, a flood will occur there.” Believe me, with the same phrase and the same tone that I presented to you, they showed indifference to such a sensitive issue. God bless Mr. Shahramfar; encountering this approach, he and I had a long conversation and explained that we have closely observed all these issues and have seen with our own eyes Iraq's readiness for war. However, all these efforts did not prove effective and we did not succeed in getting the serious sensitivity of the attendees.

It is worth noting that at that time, IRGC still did not have an efficient organization like today. For this reason, this entire mission was carried out in coordination with the general staff and its report was submitted to the same staff.

The lack of serious attention to the presentation of the report that we had prepared after enduring many hardships, in a way, discouraged martyr Shahramfar and me. We spoke quite firmly about Iraq's determination to fight, but they did not believe it at all. They kept claiming that Iraq does not have the courage and strength to carry out such an attack. we knew that Iraq had 13 self-sufficient armies, a very strong ground force, and its armored forces were very powerful and equipped. In fact, Iraq's ground and armored forces were unique in the entire Middle East region. But we had seven or eight armies in our country, yet not complete and equipped armies. To be honest, if the people were not on the scene, we would not have been able in any way to stand against the self-sufficient, full-fledged and armed Iraqi army, considering the conditions and military facilities of our country. If there were no people, if there was no IRGC, if there was no Basij and if these popular forces did not enter the scene largely and seriously, believe me, Saddam would have achieved his wish and would have deployed his army in Tehran within a few days and we did not have a unified army.

The Second Narrative: Beginning of the Imposed War

Finally, as a result of ignoring the comprehensive report presented by martyr Shahramfar and I, Iraq prepared itself to attack without any reaction from our country less than two months later. By the way, on the first day of the war, we were in the region with the same fellow who ridiculed Iraq's determination to fight the war by using the word “spitting”. In fact, we were present in the region and on the border with Iraq that day when the war started. On that day, Mr. martyr Fakuri, then Air Force Commander, martyr Fallahi and Mr. Zahirnejad were present in Qasreshirin area.

There was an AJA’s brigade stationed in Qasreshirin region, which was commanded by the lieutenant colonel of the Union. That same day, moments before the start of the war, he and I went to visit the border areas by a Jeep Wagoneer. When we returned, we parked our car next to four other cars which were full of ammunition; a few minutes later, the Iraqi air attack began, and all five cars were hit by rockets and burned. All the four ammunition vehicles and our car.

It is worth mentioning that in the very first attack, the brigade stationed in Qasreshirin presented 47 or 48 martyrs to the Islamic regime. We were collecting the dead bodies of the martyrs at night when I saw great bravery of Martyr Fakuri in an event. Although he was a member of the Air Force, he participated with us in the fight on the ground. With the aim of preventing the advance of the Iraqi army, he designed a plan in which two tanks would be moved to the middle of the road and in a way build a barrier against the invasion of the Iraqi army. They really carried out this plan with courage and self-sacrifice, but unfortunately one of the tanks was hit by a missile at the same moment of starting to move and stopped. Then he quickly contacted Hamedan Base, which was the closest base to the region, so that some of our pilots would come to the region to check the conditions. He even ordered some fighter-bombers to move towards the area. The same thing happened. Just when we went from Choghahamam to Qasreshirin and returned to the war zone, some bombers and a helicopter arrived there for detection and passed right above our heads. But maybe two to three minutes after our arrival, the Army Aviation’s reconnaissance helicopter was hit by a missile and fell in a place about several hundred steps away from us. Unfortunately, on the first day of the war, six or seven of our best and most skilled pilots were martyred.

The situation was very unfortunate. If it wasn't for the tact of Shahid Fakuri and the air force didn't arrive, the Iraqi army would have smash Qasreshirin in the same day and completely put this area under its control. Actually Qasreshirin was falling. But after the call of Martyr Fakuri, the bombers and Phantoms arrived and with the unparalleled courage of the pilots, they passed through the countless missiles that were being fired at them and were able to stop their advance by heavily bombarding the weapons of the Iraqi army. I witnessed the beautiful and effective maneuvers of these zealous pilots that day. Believe me, it was as if rockets were coming towards them from the ground. But fortunately, apart from that helicopter, none of our warplanes were hit and our brave pilots were able to cripple the Iraqi army.

Iraq's intention was to cut Qasreshirin from Sarpol-e Zahab on the same day. But it failed to achieve its goal. Of course, as I mentioned, we lost six or seven elite pilots in the helicopter crash.

On that day, I said with great anger and sadness to the fellow who mocked the Iraqi invasion at the general staff meeting, “Do you remember, Shahramfar and I warned about the Iraqi invasion just a few days ago? Do you remember how we insisted that we had closely observed the definite signs of Iraq's intention to attack? Now that you saw it yourself today, did you finally believe it? Didn't you say that you would spit and destroy them? Why didn't you do it today?” Our conflict was getting serious due to that person's reaction and the quarrel was coming to a pretty pass so that Martyr Borujerdi intervened and reconciled us.

Indeed, I was very angry that day; Because we had examined almost the entire border strip that could be penetrated within a period of three months and rightly by enduring a lot of difficulties and hardships, we reported all the movements, replacements and even an estimate of the number of Iraqi army forces and weapons in the region. It was as clear as day for us that Iraq would attack our country, but I don't know why friends did not pay attention to this sensitive and decisive issue.

Source: Mirdar, Morteza (2024) Struggle as Narrated by Ali Tahayyori, (ed.) Shima Ashtiani, Iran, p. 224.