After Iran agreed to the terms of UN Resolution 598, Saddam Hussein confessed at a private meeting that he fully intended to renege on the terms of the ceasefire and finish the 8-year war between the Baathist party of Iraq and Iran. Massoud Rajavi the leader of the MEK terrorist group asked Saddam to support them in an operation against its own country known as Forough Javidan.

Wafiq al-Samarraee, the head of the Iraqi army, intelligence agency, and director of military intelligence for Iran noted: "President Saddam, at a special secret meeting at the Ministry of Defense told us: 'if we succeed in overthrowing the Iranian government, Kuwait will join Iraq, so there is a historic opportunity for a massive attack to overthrow the Iranian regime and changing it with a new government which we will elect.”

According to the Iraqi intelligence official, the MEK assured Saddam that if its members got the power, Iran would forever be a friend of Iraq and support its policies. The MEK / MKO was so blind to seizing power that its leadership willingly plotted a war against their own country, putting millions of innocents in danger.

Captain Sattar Sa’ad of the 3rd Army Corps of the Iraqi Army was there during Operation Forough Javidan; he wrote in his diary: “Massoud Rajavi repeatedly said that in those areas we were going to operate, people would support us. But Rajavi and his men deceived us. I quickly realized that all Iranians we came across in fact hated Massoud Rajavi and his wife. I saw with my own eyes how they tore Massoud Rajavi’s pictures and his wife and how strongly they resisted.”

The captain also commented on the crimes and moral depravation MEK militants so eagerly committed. For example, the group’s female militants gave away sexual favors to prove their loyalty to Iraq and its military. He also described the cruelty of all MEK militants when confronted with Iranian civilians, how they tore at the flesh of pregnant women and executed innocent babies.

Mersad Operation the Counter Attack of Iran Military Forces

After Iran accepted UN resolution 598 and declared a ceasefire with Iraq, Saddam used the terrorist MKO group encamped in Iraq to gain as much of Iranian territory as possible.

The MKO was calculating on civil unrest against Iran and public support for their cause. An army of about 15,000 anti-Iranian forces equipped with weapons and logistics supplied by Iraq and other enemies of Iran started their invasion from the West. This proved again that MKO and their European allies did not have a clue about Iranian readiness and public opinion as Iranians quickly entered the battle position and started the Mersad Operation on July 28, 1988, with the code: Ya Ali.

Happy with their initial success, the anti-Iranian army moved towards Kermanshah with dreams of capturing Tehran. They were unaware that this was a tactical move to get them all inside a trap. 34 km west of Bakhtaran (near Kermanshah), a rain of fire descended upon the enemy, destroying most of their armored vehicles including 120 tanks. In this operation, 4800 enemy mercenaries were killed while others fled towards Iraq.

The operation of Forough Javidan became a fiasco for MEK and is considered the worst military operation in the world based on the tactics in which many MEK members were killed or arrested. After the operation, Massoud Rajavi shamelessly denied all responsibilities, preferring instead to blame his members’ lack of commitment.

The Iranian Mersad Operation was an extraordinary operation that most of the world military experts claim it as a great operation that showed the quick counterattack of Iranian military forces and one of the examples of military tactics around the world.

Autor: Alireza Niknam