“The Sacred Defense was a manifestation of the will of the great Iranian nation to stand against any aggression and hostility by enemies,” said the Army in a statement, adding that the Mersad operation carried out in the final days of this imposed war “proved the necessity for constant vigilance to counter the influence of the arrogant leaders of the world and those attached to the enemy.”
The statement went on to praise the efforts of all forces participating in the operation including Army, IRGC, and Basij to inflict the “heaviest defeat” to enemies during the war.
Earlier in the day, Chief of Staff for the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran Major General Mohammad Bagheri also issued a statement on the same occasion, noting that Operation Mersad bears persistence lessons that can help the country go through enemies’ plots unharmed.
Iranian forces carried out Operation Mersad on July 27, 1988, in the western province of Kermanshah to counter the attack of the terrorist group Mojahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) which was backed by the US and the Iraqi Ba'athist regime.
Two days before Operation, the MKO, who had gathered their forces on the Iranian-Iraqi border and were equipped with heavy and semi-heavy weapons by Saddam's regime, began invading Iranian territory. The leaders of the MKO thought that the forces would cross the main roads of Iran without encountering a major obstacle and would reach Tehran in a short time and occupy the capital of Iran.
However, in Operation Mersad, Iranian forces surrounded a large number of elements of the terrorist group in the Pataq Strait (or Mersad) in western Iran, and after three days of fighting, they finally won. More than 4,800 members of the MKO terrorist group were killed and wounded in the operation.
The MKO has carried out numerous terrorist attacks against Iranian civilians and government officials since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. Out of the nearly 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist attacks over the past four decades, about 12,000 have fallen victim to MKO's acts of terror.
Washington and the European Union have removed the MKO from their lists of terrorist organizations. The anti-Iran terrorists enjoy the freedom of activity in the US and Europe and even hold meetings with American and EU officials.
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