Word: iranian
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...drive had the Koranic code name Walfajr, for "I swear by the dawn." But Iranian leaders were also calling it "the last blow to Baghdad," and noting that it was timed to mark the fourth anniversary of the Iranian revolution led by Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. Declared Speaker of the Iranian Parliament Hojjatoleslam Hashemi Rafsanjani: "The people expect this offensive to be the final military operation that will determine the destiny of the region...
Last Monday evening thousands of Islamic Guards and volunteer troops, backed by several regular army divisions, swept across a flat plain toward Iraqi positions near the border of Iran's oil-rich Khuzistan province. It was the beginning of yet another major effort to drive enemy forces from Iranian soil, seize Iraqi territory in return, and ultimately bring down the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Although the offensive apparently failed to score any immediate breakthrough, it was clear that another grim and bloody chapter in the 2½-year-old Persian Gulf war was in the making...
...there was no way to confirm the exaggerated claims made by either side, since no foreign journalists were allowed at the front. But U.S. Intelligence officials said each side probably had about 100,000 troops poised for battle, and casualties were believed to be heavy. Throughout the week, the Iranians repeatedly launched "human wave" assaults in the face of heavy Iraqi resistance, only to fall back and press forward again. Residents of the Iranian city of Ahwaz, 100 miles from the fighting, reported that the local morgue, which can handle 2,000 bodies, was filled to capacity with war dead...
...Iranian offensive, the fourth launched by Tehran since last July, was apparently aimed at the Iraqi city of Al Amarah. Seizure of the town would enable Iran to intercept supply and troop movements between Baghdad, the capital, and the southern port city of Basra. By midweek, Tehran Radio was claiming that advancing forces had "liberated" 120 sq. mi. of Iranian territory from Iraqi forces since the attack began. An Iraqi military spokesman was contending that the attackers did not gain "one inch of Iraqi territory...
About 90 people attended the speech, in which the exiled former advisor to Iranian President Bani-Sadr said he was "not only disillusioned but in active opposition to the Khomeini regime...