Memoirs of Ahmad Nabavi

Translated by Mandana Karimi

2026-6-8

Seyyed Ahmad Nabavi, a Sacred Defense commander and narrator of the book Berasad be Khanom-e F (For Mrs. F) was the guest of the 284th program of the Night of Remembrance (October 2015). He spoke about the preliminary Operation Wal-Fajr. Nabavi said: “In the winter of 1983, the preliminary Operation Wal-Fajr was carried out. This operation was carried out after the operations of Fath al-Mubin, Beit al-Maqdis, Ramadan, and Muharram. In this operation, we were unparalleled in terms of numbers and equipment. There was no place to throw needles in the Dokuheh barracks, so the children slept in the yard. However, we had two big problems. First, according to the late Imam Khomeini, we became very arrogant and said that with half of this force, we liberated Khorramshahr, with half of a force we took 19,000 prisoners in Fath al-Mubin, and with this force, we will carry out a good operation. Second, Iraq was so damaged in those two operations that it had a year to regroup. In the preliminary Wal-Fajr operation, one of the line-breaking battalions was the Ansar-ur-Rasoul Battalion of the 27th Division, and I was the deputy commander of one of the companies in that battalion. The battalion commander was Jafar Aqeel Mohtasham, and he remained the commander of the Ansar-ur-Rasoul Battalion until the end of the war. Martyr Abdullah Porat was the company commander. He was one of the special martyrs of the war, and I had the honor of being his deputy. We were together in the training course at the Imam Hussein (AS) barracks, and we advanced in this way until I became his deputy.

Before the operation, at around 10 pm, we arrived near the liberation point, stayed to rest for a while, and then announced the departure. The weather was very cold. There was a strong wind. Porat and I threw our two blankets together and went under them to warm ourselves. At around 1 am, they told us to move. We were the leading company of this line-breaking battalion. We thought we would have to walk about six or seven kilometers, and this distance would take about an hour and 1:45, but the calculations were wrong. Among the reasons for this wrong calculation was that the comrades’ load was very heavy. The sand slowed the children down and they were not able to bear this pressure. The extreme cold, fear, and anxiety were also factors. The further you get from the front line, the more this fear will increase. Despite all these reasons, instead of an hour and a half, we walked for about three hours, and when we were approaching the Iraqis, the children were asleep. They were bumping into each other and their metal helmets were making noise. Our company was a 150-meter column. I ran twice as fast as the comrades did, because I was going from the head of the column to the back of the column and saying: “Why are you talking or why did you come out of the column?” By the time we reached the Iraqi channels, they had been informed and moved. Although we had scouted it three days earlier, the terrain had changed, the obstacles had been moved, and the channels had changed. We had difficulty crossing the barbed wire and minefields, and we were very tired. When we reached the channel, we thought it would be 40 or 50 centimeters, but it was a one and a half meter channel. When we came out of the channel, the Iraqi ambush force started fighting. There was very heavy fire as we passed through it.

We reached an area where the Dushka was positioned in the ground in such a way that when fired, it would destroy the sole or ankle. A little further on, the Dushka had been placed in such a way that it would hit the knee, and finally they had aimed at the head.”

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So far, 378 Holy Defense Night of Remembrance programs have been held by the Center for Studies and Research on Culture and Literature of Persistence and the Office of Literature and Art of Resistance of the Arts Center. The next program will be held on Thursday, May 28 2026.

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