Operation Dawn 3

Operation Dawn 3 or Operation Valfajr-3 was Iran's worst defeat out of all the Dawn operations. 180,000 Iranian troops participated in this attack but withering Iraqi firepower in support of deeply entrenched troops slaughtered the advancing Iranians.

The Iraqis struck back by emerging from their trenches to counterattack into Iran and capture Mehran. Although Iranian troops were highly motivated, they were poorly trained and equipped for this battle. For Iran the operation was a disaster.

Battle

The Iranians attempted to further exploit activities in the north after Operation Dawn 2 on 30 July 1983. Iran saw an opportunity to sweep away Iraqi forces controlling the roads between the Iranian controlled mountain border towns of Mehran, Dehloran and Elam. Iraq conducted airstrikes against 50,000 Iranian forces lodged in mountainous terrain, exhausting themselves attempting to dislodge the Iranians. Realising they needed to alter their tactics, Iraq equipped attack helicopters with chemical warheads; while ineffective, it demonstrated both the Iraqi general staff's and Saddam's increasing interest in using chemical weapons. In the end, in total 17,000 soldiers had lost their lives,[clarification needed] with no gain for either country.[73]

Operation Dawn 8

Operation Dawn 8 was an Iranian military operation conducted during the Iran–Iraq War, part of the First Battle of al-Faw.

The Iranian operation is considered to be one of Iran's greatest achievements in the Iran–Iraq War. The Iranians were able to capture the al-Faw Peninsula, cutting off Iraqi access to the Persian Gulf in the process; this in turn hardened Iraqi attitudes to prosecute the war. The Fao Peninsula was later recaptured by Iraqi forces near the end of the war by the massive and illegal use of chemical weapons.

Iranian offensive

On 9 February 1986, the Iranians launched the operation, in which 100,000 troops comprising 5 Army divisions and 50,000 men from the Pasdaran and the Basij advanced in a two-pronged offensive into southern Iraq. Unlike the earlier offensives, Dawn 8 was planned entirely by professional Army officers, all of whom had begun their careers under the Shah. The Iranians launched a feint attack against Basra, which was stopped by the Iraqis. Meanwhile, the main Iranian blow fell on the strategically important Al-Faw Peninsula, which fell after only 24 hours of fighting.

Operation Dawn 6

Operation Dawn 6 (Operation Valfajr 6 in Persian) was a military operation conducted by the forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran against the armed forces of Saddam Hussein's Iraq. It lasted from 22 to 24 February 1984 and, along with Operation Dawn 5, it was part a larger operation to secure part of the Baghdad–Basra highway, thus cutting two of Iraq's most important cities from each other, and threatening the communications network supplying the Iraqi military on the front line. Operation Before the Dawn succeeded in capturing some high ground 15 miles from the highway, and Operation Dawn 6 was designed to exploit the Iranians' capture with a breakthrough towards the highway. However, the operation met an Iraqi defence which stood up to every attack, and the Iranians called off the attack after only two days. This led to Operation Kheibar, the re-focus of the Iranian offensive towards Basra directly.

Prelude to the operation

The failures of Iran's five large-scale 1983 offensives to inflict a decisive defeat on the Ba'th regime of Saddam Hussein had angered many in the Iranian government. Only a year before, the Iraqi army had been routed out of the majority of Iran by the regular army and religious militias of the Islamic Republic. The tracts of Iranian territory still held by Iraq in Iran were abandoned on the orders of Saddam Hussein, and the Iraqis retreated to a more defensible line along the old border between the two countries. Many commentators expected that Saddam's army would fall apart as it had done in Iran.

Operation Dawn

Operation Dawn may refer to: