The Third Regiment: Memoirs of an Iraqi Prisoner of War - 46
By Mujtaba Al-Husseini
Translated From Arabic by: Muhammad Hussein Zavar-Kaaba
Machine Translation edited by Mandana Karimi
2026-09-06
The Third Regiment: Memoirs of an Iraqi Prisoner of War - 46
By Mujtaba Al-Husseini
Translated From Arabic by: Muhammad Hussein Zavar-Kaaba
Machine Translation edited by Mandana Karimi
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People got out of the vehicles one by one to rest and splash water on their faces. I took an Aftabeh (pitcher) to relieve myself and started moving in search of a suitable place. No matter how much I looked, it was useless. I had to take the ambulance switch and hurried away from the people in the battalion to …
How weak a human being is who, in order to satisfy his simplest natural need while worrying and mentally unbalanced, feels that the whole earth is narrowing down on him. Life at the front is truly hard and exhausting! When I returned, I felt that I had achieved a victory! A little later, I saw a group of soldiers running quickly after three sheep and trying to catch them. Their efforts were fruitless. This scene surprised me. That is why I asked the soldiers if anyone lived here? They said, "No, the people here have left their homes and abandoned their sheep since the beginning of the war. Now these sheep have become wild."
I said to myself, "These sheep are the last survivors of life in this area. They are left to fight nature, wolves, and the hungry mouths of our troops!"
The order to move was given again. I was feeling very bad. I asked my friends to spread a blanket on the ground and place ambulances around it so that in that dark night, no more cars would run me over. I threw my tired body on the blanket. "Ghazi," the regiment's medic, threw his coat over me. A few minutes later, I fell into a deep sleep. I paid no attention to those around me, to the sound of the cars, and to the roar of the guns. The proverb is true: Death is king! Yes, nothing but sleep can overcome fatigue and pain - even if it is sleep on the cold ground in the middle of a battlefield.
At nine o'clock in the evening, my friends woke me up and I opened my eyes wide to see the darkness and the sky full of stars and bright bullets. The roar of mortars could be heard from all sides. I never thought that I had slept for three hours in those conditions. The pain and fatigue had left my body. I got into one of the ambulances with my friends and after drinking tea and eating a few biscuits and oranges, we chatted until ten o'clock in the evening. The order to move was given, but this time without turning on the lights.
After a short time, we reached a small river whose water was flowing rapidly. The name of this river was "Nisan" and a floating bridge had been erected on it. Near the bridge were several large cages. I asked the soldiers guarding the bridge why these cages were there. They said that these cages were prepared for Iranian prisoners?! I asked, “Where does this road lead?”
They said, “To the cities of Bostan and Sabeleh.”
It was then that I realized that we were going to the battlefield. After crossing the bridge, we continued our path parallel to a high embankment to the east. The further we went, the more we heard the sound of mortars until we even saw small arms fire. It was about midnight and we continued to move slowly and cautiously. I was very tired, but I could not sleep due to excessive fear and anxiety, because in this area, the danger was serious and death was certain.
Fifteen minutes after midnight, by the order of the regiment commander, we changed our route and entered a cultivated field. The armored vehicles could easily travel on the road due to their large, sandy wheels, but it was very difficult for our vehicles to continue on, so much so that after a distance our engine died. I quickly got out and inspected the engine under the light of the small flashlight I had with me. At this time, the other vehicles stopped next to the waterless canal. After fixing the engine fault, I set off on foot in front of the ambulances to guide them. A little later, I saw the regiment commander and said to him, “What should we do, Commander?”
He said, “Doctor! Try to find a hiding place for yourself and stay here until morning!”
I said to myself, “Oh God, where should I hide. Where should I hide these four ambulances?” We were in danger from all sides. Anyway, I called the ambulance drivers and ordered them to use the darkness of the night and camouflage themselves. I also parked the ambulance in a hole near a camouflaged tank. The ambulance driver fell asleep behind the commander. Nurse Khamis Abdul Mohsen and I crawled into the equipment inside the ambulance and slept.
I woke up at five in the morning. After eating breakfast, which consisted of a cup of tea and a few biscuits, we sat down and waited for the morning to come. Then I went to the regiment commander and asked him to assign some soldiers to dig trenches to camouflage the ambulances. The other soldiers were also busy digging trenches when suddenly tank shells from the north fired upon us. The regiment members fled like a herd of goats frightened by the sight of a wolf. I ran with the medical team to the swamp and took refuge in an empty canal. It was around eight in the morning when I saw a number of houses with a high water source in the middle of them. I asked one of the tank crews, “Where is that?”
He said, “That is the city of Sabeleh.” He added, “That city is 3 kilometers away from us, and the Iranians are targeting us from there.”
Sabeleh is a small town located southwest of Bostan city, on the banks of a small river of the same name, “Sabeleh.” The fire continued until 9 a.m. After that, we went to the regimental headquarters. The unit’s new positions were located on the east side of the embankment that had been built by the road construction machines of the Irrigation Department. To the north of it was the city of Sabeleh, and to the west of it was “Hoor al-Huwayzeh.” Hoor al-Huwayzeh was about 400 meters from our positions.
I called the medical team to go together and find the necessary tools to build a shelter for ourselves, because the winter and rainy season had arrived, and the area seemed very dangerous from a military perspective. While searching the area, I came across a number of abandoned bunkers. Inside the trenches were a lot of wood and metal plates and some boxes for artillery shells. I was very happy to see them. At that moment, I felt an indescribable joy. I was like a thirsty person who had reached a well in the desert! We quickly set off for that area. We transferred some of the wood and metal plates into the truck. However, when we tried to lift the boxes, we realized that they were very heavy and full of 122mm artillery shells. Yes! The Iraqi forces had fled and left them behind. We emptied the shells and transferred the boxes into the truck. We were all happy to get this booty! We dug a large hole with a bulldozer and covered it with wood and tin, until it turned into a large underground room. In the afternoon, we moved all our belongings into the newly built bunker.
On the afternoon of December 1, 1981, the shelling by Iranian forces stopped and I had a chance to investigate the situation in the area. While patrolling, I saw a number of heavy road and canal construction machines along the dirt road and near the dirt dam, on which the name "Ministry of Irrigation" was written. Apparently, these machines had been brought to the area to build an embankment. Our forces were scattered on a flat area between the embankments of the Sabeleh River and were exchanging fire with Iranian forces stationed on the other side of the river. I asked one of the soldiers about the forces nearby. He replied that it was the 12th Mechanized Brigade.
There were a number of thatched houses around Hoor al-Huwayzeh. At first, I thought that people lived there because I had seen about 52 cows and three dogs there, but when a group of soldiers from our regiment went there, it turned out that those houses were uninhabited and instead of villagers, 25 soldiers and an officer with the rank of brigadier general, who were the remaining personnel of the 1st Regiment of the 23rd Brigade, were living there. After their unit was destroyed in the battles of Bostan, these people preferred to flee and took refuge in those houses. When they saw their own soldiers from afar, they thought that they were Iranian forces and immediately came out of their houses and raised their hands in surrender, shouting "Allahu Akbar!" When the soldiers approached them, they were suddenly surprised and very ashamed. They were brought to the battalion positions and given food and water; until our regiment commander came and ordered them to be transferred to the headquarters of the 5th Regiment.
Continuing to patrol the area, I found a lot of ammunition that the previous soldiers had abandoned and fled. In addition, I saw many carcasses of wild and domestic animals such as foxes, cows, sheep and birds that had been killed due to heavy fire.
That evening, I went to the regiment commander. He was the only one who had a shelter like us. Because the other people were living inside vehicles and tanks. We held a short meeting with the presence of his deputies: First Lieutenant "Kan’aan" and First Lieutenant "Mohammad Javad" and we reviewed the situation on the front. Major "Miqdad Juma'a", the commander of our regiment, said in this meeting, "The Iranian forces were able to capture the city of Bostan and reach the Chadhabeh Strait, which leads to the city of "Al-Amara", and cut off the connection between the forces of the Fourth Corps stationed in Al-Amara and the forces of the Third Corps in Basra.
The connection between these two corps is the same road that passes by the embankment, and the road from the Sabeleh region to the Chadhabeh Strait is in the hands of the Iranian forces." He added: "The Iranian forces have inflicted crushing blows on the Iraqi forces stationed around Dehlawiyeh, the Sabeleh River and the Nissan River, and have suffered heavy losses on the 48th Infantry Brigade, the 23rd, 93rd, 24th, 25th Mechanized Brigades, and 26 tanks."
To be continued …
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