Operation Beit ol Moqaddas

Prelude

On September 22, 1980, because of his desire that Iraq should have complete dominance over the Shatt al-Arab (or the Arvand Rūd) waterway, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein declared war against Iran and launched a land invasion of southern Iran, although operations did occur elsewhere on the Iran–Iraq border. After achieving successes due to the post-Revolution military and political chaos in Iran, Saddam Hussein ordered that the Iraqi troops "dig-in" on the front line. He hoped that this would show the world that he cared about the fate of the Iranian people, and that he was only concerned with achieving his aim of securing the entire Shatt al-Arab waterway, which had been under dispute since the 1975 Algiers Agreement. However, since the Islamic Revolution of Iran in 1979, Iraq had felt that it was necessary to assume what it wanted through force, since previous attempts in getting the revolutionary Iranian government to negotiate a new settlement had proved fruitless.

Once the Iraqi forces had settled, the Iranians were planning a series of operations designed to evict the Iraqis from southern Iran, of which Operation Tariq al-Qods was one.

Battle

The Iranians attacked, with some 70,000 soldiers in the Ahvaz–Susangerd area. The Iraqi forces in the area withdrew, and strengthened the defenses of Khorramshahr.

The Iraqis launched a counter-offensive on 20 May. However, despite its scale, the Iranians were able to repulse the attack.

On 22 May, the Iranians liberated Khorramshahr; the vitally strategically and symbollically important Iranian city whose capture by Iraq had been the low-point of Iranian fortunes in the early days of the war

The Iraqis were ordered to retreat, although many had done when Khorramshar had fallen, back into Iraq. The Iranians captured 15,000-19,000 Iraqi troops and a substantial amount of Iraqi military hardware in Khorramshahr.

The numbers of casualties sustained by Iraq and Iran are unknown; but it is likely that there was not marked a difference between both sides. Iranian forces was a combination of regular Army together with Pasdaran and Basij fighters, which it would come to rely on later in the war from 1983 onwards.

The commander of the Iraqi forces in the city, Colonel Ahmad Zeidan, attempted to flee, but was trapped in a minefield which previously had been set up on his orders, and killed when he stepped on a mine.

Iran

Iranian units involved in the operation were as follows: Each IRGC battalion was consisted of 300 Basij volunteers at most, while each Army battalion was around 2.5 times bigger. However, the number of battalions in each IRGC brigade was bigger than those of the Army.

Karbala Central Headquarters
Commanded by Mohsen Rezaei (IRGC commander) and Col. Ali Sayyad Shirazi (Army commander)

Combat engineer units involved were as follows:

Other forces included:

Iraq

Iraqi units involved in the operation were as follows: