Rahim Afshar's Memories

Translated By Mandana Karimi

2026-06-19

Rahim Afshar, a fighter in the Holy Defense and narrator of the book Sayeh-ye Tak (Shadow of the Vine), was a guest on the 284th Night of Remembrance program (October 2017). He spoke about the enemy's attack on the anniversary of the founding of the Iraqi Baath Party. Nabavi said: "O humble servant, I am the memory of eleven people from the group of personnel who entered the 120 mm mortar unit in 1983 and when the war ended in 1988, two of us remained out of the eleven. Another person was the late Mohammad Pourali Rafiei who passed away in 1999 due to complications from a chemical injury and was not considered a martyr. The bravery of the 450,000 army and ground forces personnel who were present at the front 18 months before the war and are still present today in Syria and the border areas of the country. On July 16, 1987, the enemy attacked Hill 402 in the Somar area. At that time, we had been on the front line for about 9 months, and in order to rest a little, our battalion was brought back for a while and a fresh battalion was sent to Hill 402. Those days coincided with the 19th anniversary of the founding of the Iraqi Baath Party, and Saddam had made a declaration to his commanders that if a force could take Hill 402 from the Iranians, he would give them the same number of Benz cars. The commander of the Fourth Iraqi Corps accepted this responsibility. On July 16, 1987, that operation took place with five divisions against the 191st Battalion of the Zahedan Division, which had swapped places with us. They poured so much fire that if it weren’t for those trenches, not even an ant would have survived.

At 11:30 p.m., the 146th Battalion was ordered to return to its previous position. By the time the forces moved, it was 5:00 AM on the 17th of July. Iraq had taken control of the hill and had come down. That hill was a hill that if you stood on top of, you could see the entire Iraqi territory. By 5:00 PM that same day, with 70 to 80 casualties, the 146th Battalion had taken the hill from the Iraqis. On the 19th of July, two airborne battalions, the 126th and 135th, made a single infiltration into the Iraqi forces. This single raid confused them and Saddam said, "You promised to take that hill, so you must take it or else you will be executed." There was a sensitive point at the far left of the hill. There was a groove like a gutter there, where when the Iraqi forces were under pressure, they would come into that ravine to take refuge. We had a scout named Shukrallah Alipour, who was from the north. I told him not to ask for bullets from me until a force worth firing entered the area. The operation took place again at 10:30 PM. At the same time as the first Iraqi bullets, our first bullets were fired and we did not allow them to repeat the same thing.”

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So far, 378 Holy Defense Remembrance Night programs have been held by Resistance Literature and Culture Researches and Studies Center and the Bureau for Literature and Art of Resistance of the Hozeh Honari and the next program held on Thursday, June 27, 2026.

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