The 326th Night of Memory -3

Propaganda Unit of War; Inspiring Thought

Compiled by: Iranian Oral History Website
Translated by: Fazel Shirzad

2021-11-09

Note: The 326^th Night of Memory program was held in person on the Thursday of 29^th July 2021, in the open space of the Arts Center, with the performance of Mr. Davood Salehi. In this program, with the theme of "Morale Unit"; a narration of the warriors of the War Propaganda Unit ", General Mohammad Ali Asoudi, Mr. Ismail Mahmoudi, and Dr. Mohammad Ghasemi shared their memories.

At the beginning of the program, the presenter spoke about the teenagers of the 1980s and said: "The children who went to school in the late 1980s and early 1990s had a great blessing, and that is, at that time, they had cultural and educational educators who they were in contact with the front. They went to the war front and brought purity and spirituality as souvenirs. In order to have fun activities, they hold blanket party, they mad manuscripts and graffiti; they were all inspired by the spiritual atmosphere of the front that the training instructors had created. I can say that the success, morale, courage, and bravery that were revived in the comrade of the late 60s to form the defenders of the shrine, in a sense, were made by the inspiring thought of the comrades of the war's Propaganda Unit. They created this morale on the front and then brought it to schools as souvenirs and the comrades grew up and entered the community. How much our young people, teenagers, and comrades these days need this inspiring thought!"

The presenter then invited the third narrator of the program, Dr. Mohammad Ghasemi, to share his memories.

The third and final narrator of the program, Mohammad Ghasemi, at the beginning of his speech, while congratulating Eid Ghadir and thanking the holder of the program, Arts Center and General Asoudi, who continue to carry the flag of the war's Propaganda Unit forces, said:" In this tumult of the times, we should thank for this program that has brought us to the Lord of sacred defense. Preserving the name and memory of the great warriors and martyrs, he said: If we divide the history of Islam into two parts, it includes the events of the history of Islam before the Major Occultation of Imam Mahdi (PBUH), such as Laylat al-Mubayt, the siege of the Prophet) PBUH), the conquest of Mecca, the event of Ghadir, Ashura, 19^th day of month Ramadan, the migration of Imam Reza (PBUH) to Iran, etc. We have many, but the Islamic Revolution is the biggest event in the history of Islam after the Major Occultation, which was effective, lasting, and creating waves. If we want to measure the greatness of work, we must take an example in its own right. The Islamic Revolution is the biggest event in the world after the Major Occultation, which disrupted the new order of the arrogant world and established the new world order, which is called the "New Islamic civilization". Just as the whole world of infidels mobilized against the Prophet, this time they mobilized against the Islamic Revolution. Our sacred defense was not the Iran-Iraq war; If anyone thinks these words are wrong, s/he is very short-sighted and narrow mind. The imposed war was, in fact, the world war III. Our fighters and Iran were the only ones to take part in World War III. Let us now consider that the ISIL war in the Shamat geographical area can be called World War IV. Let's read the definition of world war."

The narrator continued: "You know that propaganda and publications unit were involved from recruitment to deployment, support, and morale, even to martyrdom, funeral and burial and holding ceremonies. These works are still doing in this unit. Mr. Asudi said that the Ba'athists had written on the wall of the Khorramshahr mosque that we had come to stay. In my opinion, in addition to this sentence, it should be said that after the conquest of Khorramshahr, our fighters wrote under it: We came, you were not here."

The narrator said: "I was successful for some time in serving in the Propaganda Unit of the front and the war in Najaf Ashraf Camp. At that time, Operation Dawn 10 was to be carried out in the west of the country in the Oramanat region[1] to support the people of Halabja. The route of the operation was from Nosud[2] and Nudsheh[3] to the cities of Khurmal, Tawila, and Halabja[4]. The commander of the third Quds Force was Ali Jafari's brother and his successor was the brother of the martyr Haja Hossein Hamedani. Provisions for Information and operations were done and, thank God, the fighters achieved their goals in the very first hours. Some photos are in everyone's camp. The operation was successful and after the victory, a reporter came to inform the society about the victory of that war, saying: "O Dear listeners, listen to me! The warriors of Islam have already entered Tavileh (animal barns in Persian). He used the word Tavileh instead of Tovileh (name of a region). People were saying: What are these warriors going to do inside the barn? They still did not know that this reporter had mistakenly called the city of Tovileh an animal barn (Tavileh).

Ghasemi continued: "The second memory was similar to the conquest of Khorramshahr, which Saddam claimed he would give us the key to Baghdad if we liberated Khorramshahr. He also said about the city of Mehran that if we liberated Mehran he would give us the key to Basra. However, his key did not work as some other keys! Anyway, 60 battalions were prepared for the conquest of Mehran; the divisions came there because the liberation of Mehran was the order of Imam Khomeini, who said that it was a matter of dignity and we must liberate Mehran. An operational base was established in the Golan region of Ilam province. Commanders, like Mr. Shamkhani, Mr. Izadi, Mr. Mohsen [Rezaee] and Rahim, etc. were stationed in the Golan region. Najaf Ashraf base was responsible for the propaganda of that front and the war. However, some also came from other camps. We had installed 10 kW radio stations there. These radio stations operated for the region on both sides of the line using Arabic-speaking, Persian-speaking, Kurdish-speaking, and Lak-speaking forces. Saddam was also sensitive to this radio and bombed it. He even wasted a plane to hit this radio station. The only radio station that could penetrate the single-wave radio of the Ba'athist political officers was the 10-kilowatt radio, and no other wave penetrated there. For this reason, Saddam was sensitive at this station and sent planes constantly there. Eventually, they destroyed it, but the radio continue to work.

The narrator went on to say: When the operation started, the first 10 battalions, out of 60 battalions that came into operation fortunately, were able to liberate the city of Mehran, which was ordered by Imam Khomeini. On the first night of Mehran city liberation, the news announced that the warriors of Islam held a complete prayer in the city of Mehran. That prayer was held by Mr. Bahari. Of course, there were three of us; the driver and Mr. Bahari and me. I was the Propaganda Unit's deputy of the Najaf camp and Mr. Naeini was in charge of it. The radio also broadcasts the voice of Mr. Bahari. The city of Mehran was under fire by both sides, namely Iran and Iraq. Even while reciting Kamil's prayer, the sound of bombs and explosions could be heard. The next day, when we settled in Salehabad, Mehran's victory was to be announced nationwide. We went to perform ablution and saw Mr. Naeini coming to us in a hurry and saying:" say something! "I asked: "Why? What happened?" he replied that Mehran city was released and they want to announce this news. He said: "Imam's heart became happy." He, who had a small figure, went very quickly, and this sentence became a headline and a lasting one. On the front and in those circumstances, we were not able to handle some affairs. Some things were really inspiring. Many books have been published now and this sentence has remained in them.

The narrator continued his third memory as follows: In Operation Dawn 8, Mr. Mazinani, Mr. Naeini, and I were supposed to bring a photo from Bavarian Island[5] so that we could say that it was very important here and work on it. We went to Arvand beach with a station and then went to the other side by boat to the middle of the island. It was the morning of the operation and the island was sultry and quiet. The infidel Ba'athists were perched on the palm trees and we did not know. Our shoes were muddy. We arrived at a public bathroom. We had been there for two hours and we had not found anything yet. We found a tube. We thought to take a photo and claim it was an oil well! As we were joking and laughing, we saw a barrage of bullets coming from the top of the trees, and the barrage hit the tree, and the leaves fell to the ground. We would put our muddy feet on the leaves and run away like robots because we only had one gun. When we got to the beach, we saw that Mr. Naeini was not there. He was weak and had already said I wanted to stay here, in the boat. A basij soldier, who was with us, was also injured in the foot. We helped each other and came to this side of the river. We stayed until a van came and brought us to the camp. We told Mr. Izadi that we had not found any photos and one of us became injured. Ba'athist forces were also stationed there. Of course, we took this photo of the toilet pipe as a joke. We did not have the opportunity to go further to bring new evidence.

At the end of the ceremony, the presenter read a few lines from the book "From Europe to Lalehzar Street" by Mohammad Ghahremani and compiled by Ms. Tina Mohammad Hosseini. One of the things that bothered us a lot was the big mice. We were not against these mice in any way. The natives called these groundhogs. We found ourselves unable be the opponent of the mice. We thought about what to do; when the comrades went to the city and bought traps for us. The bulwark system was internal and external, and the wireless was in the rear. I was worried that the mice would chew on the strings. I also instructed the forces of telecommunications to do something and save wires. We put the mousetraps in the rear. At the front, some Air Force and Air Force commanders came for the briefing. Next to Mr. Mohsen, another person, from the IRGC’s (Iranian Revolution Guard Corps) War Research Center, was standing and recording events and professions. The mouse was trapped during the briefing. We heard a loud bang. He asked:" who was it?" I said quietly, "it was a trap, do not worry!" I got up and left there. When I took the mousetrap, I found the mouse had fallen from the neck into the trap and was pulling the trap with it. The trap was fallen from my hand on the ground because the mouse was really heavy.

The program ended with a one-minute memoir of the audience and a text reading by the presenter about the The reappearance of Imam Mahdi (PBUH).

 
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