Iran’s ‘young martyrs’ keep dying

Press, 8 March 1984, Page 20

Iran’s ‘young martyrs’ keep dying

By

Ralph Joseph,

in Paris

In March, 1982, before the Iranians launched a big offensive against Iraqi forces still occupying their countiy, Ground Forces Commander Colonel Sayaad Shirazi went to see Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeiny. He told him that he could achieve his objective in the planned offensive, (recapturing a large chunk of Iranian territory), but that 20,000 Iranians would probably die in the attack. Colonial Shirazi had in mind the “human wave” tactic, which until then had been used only to a limited extent. Khomeiny’s reply was: ‘So long as we have people ready for martyrdom, we should use them.” Colonel Shirazi used them. His calculation of the Iranian casualties turned out to be correct, but he achieved his objective. The offensive became a turning point in the Gulf War.

After the victory, Brigadier General Abol Qasem Zahir-Nezhad, the Iranian chief of staff, bragged at a press conference in Teheran that Iran would win a prolonged war with Iraq because it had a larger population from which to draw recruits. From then on, the Iranians used the “human wave” tactic regularly to recapture territory from the Iraqis. Colonel Shirazi, at one time a member of the Tudeh (Communist) Party, may have borrowed the idea from Communist military doctrine, particularly Chinese. The operations were spaced to enable the regime to recruit new batches of young men and boys in the “Baseej” (Mobilised) force after each offensive. They were put through rudimentary courses of training, and used in the “human waves,” running wildly over Iraqi minefields and other obstacles, allowing themselves to be blown up, but clearing the way for revolutionary guards coming behind.

A young “Baseeji”, who said he was 15 years old but may have been younger, told me during a visit to the front areas: “My life may be less important than that of another Iranian fighter.” He appeared to be echoing an idea that had been drilled into him.

In fairness, critics of the tactic have said that young mullahs have often led the “human waves.” One Iranian who had seen them in action said that the young mullah, usually a seminary student called a “talabeh”, ran in front of the “human wave,” holding a Koran in his hand and shouting “Allaho Akbar” (God is Great). My informant, who saw this kind of thing twice, said that in both cases the mullah was among the first to die. In 1982, Iran seemed to have a limitless supply of “volunteers” for the Baseej force. In the same year, after a string of Iranian successes in the war, the Iraqis decided to pull out of Iran in the hope of ending the conflict. They yielded

most of the territory they had captured at the start of the war. Ayatollah Khomeiny then ordered the war to be fought on Iraqi soil. He set himself a new objective: the overthrow of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Young “Baseejis” and the fanatical revolutionary guards were told that the objective was to “free Karbala,” one of the holiest shrines of the Shi’ite faith, about 250 kilometres south-west of Baghdad. The road to Karbala passed through Baghdad, and they would have to bring down the regime of Saddam Hussein first.

After the Iraqi pull back, there was a visible change in their morale. They appeared to fight better. By then they had also become familiar with Iranian tactics. Now fighting a defensive war, they dug in more firmly and multplied their fortifications. They laid down wider and more dense minefields, along with miles of barbed wire and other obstacles. They dug deep canals along the front to stop the advance of Iranian tanks.

By Iranian accounts, the canals were from three to 10 metres wide, and in some cases up to 30 kilometres long. The Iraqis also threw up high embankments, behind which they placed their artillery. Scattered across the minefields were booby traps and barrels of inflammable material which burnt for long periods once ignited. The string of Iranian successes came to an abrupt end in February, 1983, when they launched an offensive to coincide with anniversary celebrations for the revolution. Instead of victory, people in Teheran saw thousands of corpses returning from the front. “Mourning lights” were lit in almost every street in the poorer sections of the city, from which the “Baseejis” had been drawn.

Before the attack, Majlis Speaker Akbar Hashemi-Rafsan-jani had boasted: “This is our last offensive.” It had been code-named “Operation Dawn,” and was launched in the central sector of the 1100-kilometre front, closest to Baghdad. After it failed, the Iranians decided to try again. They launched another attack in about the same place two months later. Once again, it failed. Meanwhile, the regime found its sources of “Baseej” recruits drying up. Two more “Dawn” offensives were launched, but in the last, in October, the Iranians are said not to have used “human waves.” Then the mullahs set themselves the target of getting together a new force of 280,000 young Iranians. They used forced conscription, seizing young people as they emerged from cinemas and inducting them into the new force. Hundreds of mullahs were sent out to the villages to ask people to

come forward and join the “Baseej”, but parents responded by hiding their teenage sons when revolutionary guards and mullahs came looking for recruits. Highschool teachers were reportedly forced to hand over 10 or 12 “volunteers” from each school.

The regime also had many unemployed to draw from. President Ali Khamenei exhorted the jobless: “It is the religious duty for all young people in this country to work. They should join the revolutionary organisations. They should join the Baseej, train, or receive training, they should produce and build, but they should not remain idle.”

The recruitment drive apparently succeeded. When the final

preparations were being made for Iran’s latest offensive, it had so many young people to transfer to the front that there were not enough trucks for them. Teheran’s buses had to be taken off the city streets and used to carry thousands of the new recruits to the front. About 6000 young mullahs were also sent there from Qom. “We have decided to bring this war to an end by victory,” Persident Khamenei announced in early February. Days later Iran launched “Dawn Five”, and Khamenei bragged: “We have reached the day when we shall recover our rights by force ... We have hundreds of thousands of men at the front.” Western reports spoke of up to one million men

concentrated on both sides of the border. On February 20 Iran launched “Dawn Six”, and two days later yet another offensive, which for some reason was this time code-named “Operation Khaibar.” Iranian leaders once again referred to the attack as the “last offensive.” Other Iranian attacks have been launched since. The “last offensive” continues to be elusive. An Iranian doctor who defected to the West months earlier told a press conference that more than a million. young Iranians had been either killed or wounded in the previous 41 months of the war. How many more have died in the latest fighting is yet to become known.