Events
Under the codename Foroughe Javidan (Eternal Shining), the Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MEK) started their ten day operation after the Iranian government accepted UN Resolution 598. While Iraqi forces attacked Khuzestan, the Mujahedin attacked western Iran and battled the Pasdaran for Kermanshah. Close air support from the Iraqis contributed heavily to the small gains the Mojahedin made into Iran, including the seizing and razing to the ground the small Iranian city of Islamabad-e Gharb.
However, under heavy international pressure for ending the war, Saddam Hussein withdrew his fighter aircraft. Without any air cover, the Mujahedeen could not stop Iranian airborne forces from being dropped behind Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MEK) lines. The operation ended in a Bay of Pigs invasion-like disaster for the Mujahedeen. Casualties ranged from 2,000 to 10,000. Tehran claims to have killed 4,500 NLA and Iraqi troops during the operation, while insisting that 400 Iranian soldiers were killed.
Read more about this topic: Operation Mersad
Famous quotes containing the word events:
“When the course of events shall have removed you to distant scenes of action where laurels not nurtured with the blood of my country may be gathered, I shall urge sincere prayers for your obtaining every honor and preferment which may gladden the heart of a soldier.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“One of the extraordinary things about human events is that the unthinkable becomes thinkable.”
—Salman Rushdie (b. 1948)
“When the world was half a thousand years younger all events had much sharper outlines than now. The distance between sadness and joy, between good and bad fortune, seemed to be much greater than for us; every experience had that degree of directness and absoluteness which joy and sadness still have in the mind of a child”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)