39: Chapter 39 Saddam's Test

May 12, late at night.

The secret operations room in the Ahvaz Governors Mansion was brightly lit.

A huge 1:50,000 border map was spread out on a long table, marked with intricate red arrows.

"Your Highness, just as you predicted, the neighbor next door cannot sit still." Karimi pointed to several spots on the west bank of the Shatt al-Arab on the map. "Two reconnaissance battalions of the Iraq Third Armored Division have moved forward to within five kilometers of the border. Last night, at least three waves of scouts attempted to cross the boundary river. However, they were all caught by the infrared sensors we set up in the forest belt."

Reza stared at the city in Iraq called "Basra" on the map, a hint of a smile curling the corners of his mouth.

Hussein was still the Vice President of Iraq. But the power in his hands had long surpassed that of the nominal president, Bakr. He was waiting, waiting for the Pahlavi Dynasty to bleed dry, then seize the opportunity to invade and capture Khuzestan, this "soft underbelly of Persia."

In the history of the previous life, Saddam Hussein would start the Iran-Iraq War two years later. But now, seeing the chaos within Iran, this ambitious man clearly wanted to test the waters in advance.

"Who did he send?"

"The 'Saleh Squad'." Karimi's expression was grave. "That is a special operations unit personally assembled by Saddam Hussein, fully armed with Soviet equipment, and proficient in demolition and infiltration. Their target is very clear—the pressurization station of the oil refinery. As long as that place is blown up, oil exports from Khuzestan will be paralyzed for three months."

"If it is paralyzed, what will Tehran think?" Hassan asked.

"Tehran will think I am incompetent and will send large regular army units to take over. Then we will be completely exposed." Reza tapped the tabletop. "Saddam Hussein is playing at 'borrowing a knife to kill'. He doesn't need to invade personally; he just needs to stir up trouble here and make our own people fight each other."

"Then what should we do? Intercept them at the border?"

"No." A trace of ruthlessness flashed in Reza's eyes. "Since he wants to probe, I will give him a memory he will never forget. I want him to know that the current master of Khuzestan is a thousand times tougher than that softie Pahlavi."

Reza stood up and pointed to a swamp area three kilometers behind the border line.

"Set an ambush here. Do not use the regular army; let Hassan's first echelon of militia go. I want to see the results of these few months of training."

"But Your Highness, the other side is elite special forces..."

"Elite? In front of the script, there is no elite." Reza showed a strange smile.

Two o'clock in the morning, by the Shatt al-Arab.

Twelve Iraq special forces soldiers, using the starlight, slid onto the riverbank silently like water ghosts. They were wearing wetsuits soaked in black grease and carrying Soviet magnetic explosives.

The captain, Saleh, made a tactical gesture. They avoided the conventional patrol routes and chose a swampy path that even local guides dared not take.

According to their intelligence, the Iran garrison here was all second-rate thugs who couldn't even aim a gun.

"Captain, there are infrared fluctuations ahead." A team member holding a Soviet night vision device whispered a warning.

"That's a sentry, bypass it." Saleh snorted coldly. "These soldiers of the Persia prince only know how to sit by the fire and drink tea."

However, when they passed through the last cluster of reeds, the scene before them stunned them.

In the low-lying area that should have been wasteland, dozens of circular objects were neatly placed, half-buried in the soil.

"Anti-tank mines? No, they look smaller..." Saleh crouched down, about to take a closer look.

"Pop!"

A blinding white light instantly lit up the entire swamp.

It was not a flare; it was a high-intensity magnesium flash array modified by Reza. With the help of night vision goggles, this white light caused devastating damage to the Iraqis' retinas.

"Ah! My eyes!"

As soon as the screams rang out, dull metallic ejection sounds echoed in the surrounding grass.

That was the "Persia Bee" directional anti-personnel mine produced by the Cyrus Workshop. Reza had simplified it based on the principle of the "Claymore" mine, filling it with three thousand handmade steel balls.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

Three violent directional explosions.

The Saleh Squad was instantly covered by a storm of steel balls. The wetsuits were as brittle as paper in front of the dense steel balls, and the muddy water was instantly dyed dark purple.

"Fire! Free fire!" Hassan's voice rang out in the darkness.

There were no fancy tactics, only one-sided, dimensionality-reduction slaughter.

The militiamen were equipped with the first batch of low-light sights that Reza had obtained through secret channels. Although this stuff was garbage in later generations, in the Middle East of 1978, this was a true divine weapon.

In less than three minutes, the battle was over.

Twelve Iraq elites, not one could pull the trigger, all turned into corpses in the mud.

Reza walked out from the dark, his boots making sticky sounds in the swamp. He walked to the side of Captain Saleh's corpse and pulled a citation with Saddam Hussein's autograph from the other party's pocket.

"Tsk, solid evidence." Reza handed the paper to Karimi. "Clean up these bodies, don't leave any traces. But cut off this Saleh's head, put it in a courier box, and send it back to the Iraq Intelligence Agency in Basra."

Karimi was stunned: "Your Highness, is this a public declaration of war?"

"No, this is called a private warning." Reza sneered. "Put a note in the box that says: 'Neighbor, your dog ran into the wrong yard. Next time it comes again, I will go to Basra to return the favor in person.'"

He turned around and looked at the Iraq border in the darkness in the distance.

"Saddam Hussein is a gambler. A gambler who gets slapped hard before seeing his cards will become more cautious. This can buy us at least half a year of peaceful development."

Reza looked up at the sky.

The east was already showing a fish-belly white.

"Let's go, back to Ahvaz. The workers at the refinery still have to collect their bonuses today. We have to give them money, a lot of money, so they feel that following me is more promising than following anyone else."

That day, Saddam Hussein smashed his favorite red wine glass in Baghdad.

And Reza, among the mountains of Khuzestan, heard the sound of the gears turning more violently underground.

That was the sound of the test run of the "Persia-2 Missile" production line.