The 373rd Night of Memories – Part 6

Compiled by: Iranian Oral History Website
Translated by Fazel Shirzad

2026-5-6

The 373rd “Night of Memories” event was held on Thursday evening, October 23, 2025, in the Sooreh Hall of Hozeh Honari [Arts center], featuring wartime recollections shared by former POWs Nabiollah Ahmadlou, Mohammad Hadi, Mahmoud Shabani, Ali Moradi, Mohsen Jannat, Hadi Izzi, and Abbas Pirhadi. The event was hosted by Davood Salehi.

     At the beginning, sixth narrator Hadi Izzi introduced himself as a humble soldier and Basiji of Imam Khomeini (may God bless his soul), and said: “During the first and third phases of Operation Karbala‑5, I served as an RPG operator in the Al‑Mahdi battalion. The story of the three‑day siege is too long for this short time, but I will try to briefly address a few points. First, I consider it my duty to remember the exceptional and incomparable martyrs of the Al‑Mahdi battalion: great men such as Mohammad Kashihā, the brothers Haj Mahmoud and Mohammad Movafagh, Haj Ghorban Ebrahimi, and Masoud Petrako.”

He added, referring to the extraordinary bravery of his comrades: “You can hardly even call these people human; you just don’t find people of this kind anymore. Martyr Masoud Petrako, in my opinion, was a fully capable fighter. During the siege, he was the right hand of Mr. Mohammad Hadi and practically managed the entire island. All by himself, he would visit the wounded and check every trench on that large island. Normally, if a person gets even a small cut on their cheek, touching it causes pain. But his cheek was torn open so badly it couldn’t even be closed. We placed a bandage on it and taped it, but he seemed unfamiliar with pain and simply continued working.”

Describing the company commander, Haj Ghorban Ebrahimi, the narrator said: “Haj Ghorboon was extremely humble, powerful, intelligent, and truly exemplary. The path the battalion traveled from the Douayji region to the Shalhah Island looked like a scene from the end of times. Along the way, we reached a place where countless bodies of the martyrs of the 5th Nasr Division lay scattered on the ground. I don’t know whether there were one thousand or two thousand; there were so many that we had no choice but to walk over their blessed bodies. Only four fighters from that unit had survived: one firing an RPG, one operating a machine gun, and another on a DShK, holding the line. To preserve the morale of the fresh incoming forces, Haj Ghorban told one of the survivors: ‘Brother, cover these bodies.’ But the bodies were not intact; they had been torn apart by bombardment. That exhausted, frustrated fighter snapped and said: ‘Get out of here! We’re way past this kind of talk…’”

The narrator continued: “A bit farther ahead, the Iraqis had placed tomato‑shaped mines behind the island. Haj Ghorban ordered us to move right behind the sappers. At that moment, a friendly Toyota (assigned to transport martyrs) arrived. Three of its tires had been blown off by mines, and only one tire remained intact. Haj Ghorban told us: ‘Look, this Toyota is literally rolling on its rims; be careful with the mines.’ He had barely finished his sentence when that last remaining tire also hit a mine!

At the entrance of the island, a man named Nasrollah Saeedi (may God protect him if he is still alive), speaking in an Isfahani accent, told Haj Ghorban: ‘You’ll go into the island, and the Hazrat‑e‑Moslem battalion will come out. Walk 250 steps to the right and take defensive positions.’ Haj Ghorban said: ‘That’s not what we were told!’ The man replied in surprise: ‘Then how did they brief you?’ But Haj Ghorban, seeing that further discussion was pointless, accepted it. They said the Hazrat‑e‑Moslem battalion was coming out, but I don’t think more than seven or eight of them survived (and even those were wounded.(

The driver of the same Toyota that had hit the mines had stacked the martyrs’ bodies up to the sides of the vehicle and was preparing to leave. Haj Ghorban said: ‘Brother, move these bodies a bit and take these few wounded men from the Moslem battalion as well.’ The driver said: ‘My duty is only to transport martyrs; I don’t take the wounded.’ Haj Ghorban replied: ‘If you don’t take them, they’ll become martyrs too.’ The driver said: ‘That’s not my problem.’ As soon as Haj Ghorban heard that, he loaded his weapon and said: ‘Either you take these wounded, or I’ll make you a martyr myself and put you on top as well.’ The driver, seeing no other option, complained: ‘Man, everyone on this line pushes us around!’ (and then he loaded the wounded too).”

The narrator then recalled a memory of Martyr Salimi: “He was a plump and handsome young man. In the first phase of the operation, as we were returning, he told me: ‘My parents are old, and if anything happens to me, we have no one in Tehran.’ I said: ‘You’ve done your duty, go to Tehran.’ He said: ‘I can’t bring myself to.’ In the third phase, as we were about to advance, Haj Ghorban made it clear to everyone that there was no turning back, and anyone with a problem shouldn’t come. I swear this after forty years. Martyr Salimi came and said: ‘I’m not coming.’ I said: ‘Well done, go to Tehran!’ But when we entered the island and were sitting under heavy fire to eat breakfast, I suddenly saw Salimi distributing dates! I asked: ‘What are you doing here?!’ He said: ‘I’m the logistics officer! Nothing will happen.’ He meant to imply that since he wasn’t a combatant, he wouldn’t be in danger. But he, who was an only child, was martyred in that very siege.”

He explained the entry into an enemy ambush and the fall of the “pond”: “The ambush the comrades mentioned was a strange area. There was a pond in the center of the island, and whoever controlled it, controlled the entire island. We moved to capture the pond, but we had no knowledge of the area and hadn’t been briefed operationally. Behind the reeds was a canal, and behind the canal, the Iraqis were stationed in foxholes, with their quadruple machine guns and Shilkas so well-aimed that whether you were standing or lying down, you’d be hit. We were trapped in that ambush. I saw with my own eyes the heads of the boys being blown apart inside their helmets and them being martyred. We retreated along the road, and finally, when we took the pond, we engaged the Iraqis at point-blank range, and they fled. In those intense clashes, Haj Ghorban was martyred.”

The narrator mentioned a strange incident after the fall of the pond: “We were moving towards the center of the island when suddenly four teenagers, perhaps twelve or thirteen years old, opened fire on us! We were lucky not to be hit. At first, we thought they were Iraqis. We asked: ‘Who are you?’ They replied: ‘We are the boys of the 5th Nasr Division.’ It was completely unclear who had taken them to that point, as their mission range didn’t even extend that far.”

Describing the siege conditions, the narrator said: “The enemy had complete air and surveillance control over us. We were digging trenches when Iraqi gunship helicopters appeared overhead and opened fire. I was praying, and due to the intensity of the firing, I didn’t dare lift my head from prostration! The helicopters and planes never left the sky for a moment. To our left, the 9th Badr Division couldn’t hold the line; the Iraqis would hang and execute anyone they captured from them on the spot from the palm trees. The enemy had lined up T‑72 tanks on the shore of the Little Arvand, directly firing at our men. Multiply Gaza by a thousand, and that was our situation. To our right, the Ali ibn Abi Talib (pbuh) Division hadn’t arrived, and we were completely surrounded in the middle.”

The narrator continued to speak of the astonishing courage of a fighter: “I want to remember Martyr Ali Pourmoushi. You just hear his name, but he single-handedly stood against the column of the Iraqi Third Armored Corps. I was wounded and heard the sound of tank tracks. Mr. Hadi had told me to wait for the ambulance (the Khashayar APC). I asked: ‘Mr. Hadi, is that Khashayar?’ He said: ‘No, it’s an Iraqi tank.’ I got up and saw Ali Pourmoushi standing in front of a highly advanced T‑72 tank. I thought to myself, ‘They’re going to hit Ali now.’ Ali fired the first RPG round, and a few others fired too, but the tank was so well-equipped it was like we were hitting it with pebbles, and it didn’t even sustain a scratch.”

In the final part, he recounted the bitter story of his RPG assistant: “My assistant was a young man from Ilam named Mohammad Reza Abdollahi, who got separated from me during the first phase at the pond. On the second or third day of the siege, he called out to me. I went and saw that the bone in his leg had been pulverized. He said: ‘Give me a little water.’ I said: ‘Water will harm you; an ambulance is coming.’ He said: ‘Don’t lie, where an ambulance would be in this siege?’ He was martyred right there. Last year, when my niece married a girl from Ilam, I learned at the engagement ceremony that the bride’s mother was Mohammad Reza Abdollahi’s paternal cousin. The bitterest part of the story was that Mohammad Reza’s entire family had been martyred in a bombing, and he was the sole survivor of the family, who was also martyred in this siege.”

He concluded by noting: “We owe so much to our martyrs. Haj Mahmoud Movafagh, who was a high school principal, had brought all his students to the front lines. Haj Ghorban stationed a special unit to guard the island’s entrance so we wouldn’t be surrounded. A full enemy brigade attacked that unit. That 28-man unit consisted entirely of Haj Mahmoud’s students; about 26 of them were martyred, and only two survived, who were also wounded and taken prisoner.”

To be continued...