The Battles of The Shush-Dezful and Al-Tahiri Regions
by Osama AttarBashi
The Battle of Shush-Dezful:
After completing the Medical Internship in September 1981, I was
enrolled in the Military Medical Training School in Al-Rashid Camp, which was a
requirement to prepare junior doctors to serve as army lieutenants (officers).
The training was completed at the end of 1981.
At the beginning of 1982, I was assigned to the 2nd
regiment Brigade, which was based in northern Iraq at the Deeralok area (near
the city of Amadiyah). This was actually a training period for the regiment
(and the Brigade as a whole), which was one of the newly formed brigades to
support the army with new military forces. We spent nearly two months there,
enjoying ourselves with nature’s beauty, unaware of the storms we will
encounter in this enduring war.
At the end of
February, orders were issued to our unit to move to a training camp on the
outskirts of Mosul, after just two weeks, we were instructed to move to the
Shush-Dezful area inside the Iranian territories (adjacent to Iraq’s Maysan Governorate)
around mid-March. These orders were allotted as it became clear that Iranian
troops were preparing for a major assault in that area. We arrived to that
sector of the battle front at night, and most of the members of the regiment
did not have any previous experience in the battles that have taken place so
far. As soon as we arrived, the Iranian troops spotted our unit, and heavy
artillery shelling began, which resulted in some losses in our unit, even
before we knew our location in that region.
Our regiment was
eventually placed in one of the front-line breakers, and it was on a hill
overlooking a valley extending for some kilometres. The acting commander in
charge of the regiment at the time was Major Abdul Jabbar who was from the city
of Amara, because the commander Lt. Colonel Hamza was on sick leave since January due to a herniated disc of the
spine. We stayed for two or three days in that area with no real enemy
encounter, but then the next morning we woke up on a battle of tanks &
armored vehicles in the valley facing us. The battle continued throughout the
day until darkness settled, and then we saw the exchange of fire in the area
behind us on the side of the Iraqi forces. Most of us did not understand exactly what was
happening because we lacked experience in the battlefield, so I communicated to
the acting commander Major Abdul Jabbar that the Iranians may have penetrated
Iraqi defenses.
We woke up next
morning to find out that the tanks we were watching in the valley the previous
day had all disappeared and the battlefield was terrifyingly calm. I began to
worry and asked the acting commander Major Abdul Jabbar to contact the brigade
headquarters to inquire about the situation, but we could not secure any
contact. Then the acting commander requested from the artillery monitor
to ask his unit to start shelling the convoys of Iranian soldiers heading
towards us; but the artillery monitor's response was appalling as he informed
us that the target was outside the scope of the artillery coverage, which meant
that the artillery unit retreated from their position of the previous day.
Fear and
anxiety began to circulate among us. When I saw the Iranian convoys
getting close to us, I suggested to the Major to begin withdrawing immediately,
but he was afraid and hesitant, so he assigned an officer, Lieutenant Abdel
Karim, to go to the headquarters of the brigade by car to investigate the
matter. But shortly later, he returned panicking when he saw the Iranians have
taken control over the main road and his car was shot by them.
Then everyone
was convinced that staying in our place is a kind of suicide, which meant death
or captured by Iranians, so everyone started to withdraw towards the valley on
foot. The commander Lt. Colonel Hamza was lying on bed because he was
complaining of severe back pain. He had just arrived the night before and had
no idea what was happening, so we asked him to come with us. Though he initially
refused to accompany us, we insisted that he comes with us or else we would not
leave. We began descending to the valley and only few of us were still there
(the commander and his deputy, few soldiers and I). After walking for about 15 minutes, one of the warrant officers who
was in charge of managing the highly classified orders and letters of the
regiment, said that he had forgotten to bring these files with him and
decided to bring them back. We tried to persuade him not to go, but he insisted on
returning to the regiment's positions. He
never came back.
We continued
walking in the muddy valley with the Commander slowing our pace due to his back
pain, but we were determined not to leave him. At many points during our path
we were subjected to shooting by Iranian soldiers or sometimes from a plane. The
scene was more like a movie.
After a nearly
4-hour walk (approximately 10 km) we arrived. By then everyone else had already
arrived to the area that became the first line of defense for the Iraqi forces.
Meaning we were walking all that distance in an area that was eventually captured
by the Iranians.
Al-Tahiri Battle In late
April 1982, our brigade (602) was given orders to move to Al-Tahiri area,
located in the northeast of Basra city as the intelligence information was
indicating that the Iranian forces were preparing for a major military attack
on the Mohammara region. The area in
which our brigade has spread is flat, sandy and wet ground filled with
groundwater. In this area, our regiments
were positioned at the front defensive line and the Battalion command unit was approximately
500 meters behind the regiments.
The early
days were quiet, and things were normal. We enjoyed regular vacations. I went
on vacation to Baghdad and one or two days after my return to the Battalion,
the Iranians suddenly began attacking our regiment and all neighboring units at
night with artillery shelling, especially the units stationed on the front
line. We witnessed the explosions and
fires nonstop, the exchange of machine guns, and then the shelling continued
pouring at the headquarters of the regiment.
After a couple of hours, it became evident to us that the Iranians severely inflicted our forces at the front line. Our soldiers began retreating from the front
lines. They were tired and in bad spirits, and some of them talked about the
martyrs they saw.
It became
clear to us that the Iranians broke through the first line of defense as they
advanced with their forces heading towards the international borders. At that time, the commander “Abdul Jabbar”
decided to call the headquarters of the brigade that was 2-3 km behind us, but the call did not materialize
because all means of communications (wired and wireless) were interrupted. The number of retreated soldiers increased
rapidly, so the battalion commander decided to withdraw and head for the
brigade headquarters to inquire about the battle’s new orders and the role of our
battalion. We got in the car (Russian-made Waz) with the battalion commander
along with the driver and two other soldiers.
When we reached the brigade’s headquarters, we found no one, and it
seemed they left the place. As we were
heading to the car, I saw a group of Iranian soldiers heading towards us, and suddenly
an explosion erupted close to us. I
yelled to fellow group, “Has anyone been injured?” All of us were fine except for the soldier
who was wounded in the leg. The driver told us that two of the car wheels had
exploded as a result of the explosion, despite that we had to use it
nonetheless.
We drove for
a distance of approximately 5-7 km until we reached the control point near
Shalamja border station. The military
police (MP) soldiers, who seemed confused, yelled at us because we left our
positions, and they did not allow us to pass, but when they realized that one
of the soldiers was wounded, they allowed us to pass. We carried the injured soldier to the victims’
collection site and stayed in that area until the next day.
Next morning,
someone told us that our brigade’s forces were gathering in one of the nearby
palm groves. So, we headed to that area to
reorganize our brigade’s personnel and await the orders.
Many groups
of the Popular Army* arrived from Baghdad and other cities to the region of palm groves. Most of them neither had an idea about the battle
nor acquired military training or experience of the battlefields. A good percentage of them were under the age
of 18. One of them cried as he relayed his fear to me that he left his home and mother for the first time.
We waited in
that area for a day, when the news alerted us that our brigade would be
dispatched to the Muhammarah region the next day. Our battalion had already lost
more than half of its fighters, but still we began preparing to move on the
following day.
Next day, we
received news that the orders have changed and that we would
not transfer to the Muhammarah district, instead we would be sent to another
area to reorganize and complete the brigade’s shortcomings of personnel and
equipment. Next morning, the brigade’s divisions
began moving towards the outskirts of the Jalawla city in Diyala Governorate
for the purpose of reorganizing and training.
*Militarized units of civilians that were
added to the professional army units during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988)
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Al-Tahiri Battle was translated from Arabic by Wefa M. S.
Edited by Osama
Osama Attar Bashi, a graduate of the College of Medicine / University of Baghdad. He started his reserve military service in the Iraqi army as a lieutenant officer from September 1981 to September 1985 and served in the Iraqi army as a military doctor. He participated in the Iran-Iraq war from January 1982 until the end of his military service in 1985. He was an assistant professor at the College of Medicine / University of Sharjah 2008-2014. Currently working as a consultant physician in pediatrics and neonatology in the United Arab Emirates.