84: Chapter 81 The Night of the Gunshots

September 16, 1980, 2:47 AM, Khuzestan Province, Forward Command Post.

Reza was not asleep.

It wasn't insomnia; it was a conscious choice to stay awake—he needed to remain clear-headed every minute of this night because there were some things he needed to see with his own eyes.

The command post was set up in the basement of an abandoned irrigation station on the west bank of the Shatt al-Arab. The space was small, furnished with three folding tables, seven radio sets, a hand-drawn large-scale tactical map, and a simple electric lamp powered by a gasoline generator. Hassan stood to his left, Karimi to his right, and Farrokhzad manned the radio. The rest of the men were at their respective posts.

At 2:47 AM, Karimi received a signal from the forward observation post.

The signal was very short, consisting of only three words: "They have started moving."

Reza glanced at his watch without speaking. He calculated mentally: according to intelligence, preparations for Iraqi artillery positions usually took fifteen to twenty minutes, followed by the first round of shelling. About twenty minutes later, the armored clusters would depart. The entire process from "started moving" to "tanks crossing the border" would take approximately thirty-five to forty minutes.

In other words, the Iraqi tanks would cross the border line around 3:25 AM.

He had a window of less than forty minutes.

"Notify the launch sites," Reza said, his voice steady, as if speaking of something perfectly ordinary, "Enter launch preparation status and await my command."

Farrokhzad relayed the order.

Thirty seconds later, the echoes came over the radio: "Launch site one, ready." "Launch site two, ready." "Launch site three, ready."

Three positions, three sets of launch vehicles, each with two Persian-1 Type B missiles, totaling six. The targets were three Iraqi artillery positions and two forward command posts—five targets, six missiles; the extra one was a backup.

Reza pressed his finger on the map at the location of target number three—the forward command post of the Iraqi 3rd Armored Division, about seventeen kilometers from the border line. According to intelligence, this was the actual station of General Mostafa Saif, the commander specifically appointed by Saddam Hussein for this offensive.

Mostafa Saif.

Reza went over the name in his mind. This person was not an important character in his "future script"—in the history of the Iran-Iraq War, which lasted eight years, commanders were replaced batch after batch; Saif was just one of the mid-level generals who were relatively active in the early stages of the war. But tonight, his command post would become one of the first targets destroyed in this war.

At 3:02 AM, Karimi received the second signal: "Artillery positions are igniting, preparing to fire."

Reza glanced at Hassan.

Hassan nodded.

"Fire," Reza said.

Just those two words.

The three launch sites received the order simultaneously. Within thirteen seconds, the six Persian-1 Type B missiles launched one after another, dragging their respective trails of fire, piercing into the darkness of the early morning.

Reza did not see the entire launch process with his own eyes—the command post was in the basement, unable to see outside—but he felt it. It wasn't a vibration, but something more subtle: the change in air pressure and the sudden, brief silence that appeared on the radio channels.

The silence lasted for about forty seconds.

Then, sounds began to come through the communication channels—not from the Iranian side, but voices from the Iraqi artillery channels that Karimi was monitoring:

At first, it was a burst of noisy shouting, then obvious chaos, and then a series of nearly hysterical reports. Although Arabic was not Reza's native language, he understood the keywords:

"Artillery position hit—ammunition depot exploding—"

"Command post number three lost contact—"

"Requesting support—"

Karimi took the headset off his ears and said in a calm voice: "Signal from command post number three has vanished, communication with two artillery positions is cut off, and the third artillery position has issued an emergency evacuation signal."

Reza checked in his mind: five targets, at least three hit. Although the third artillery position was not directly destroyed, it was already actively retreating—artillery in retreat could not provide fire support for the armored clusters.

This meant that the Iraqi armored clusters were about to set off without any artillery cover.

"Notify the minefield positions, all personnel enter the final concealment status," Reza said, "Simultaneously notify Hassan's rapid reaction force—stand by."

At 3:31 AM, the Iraqi armored clusters crossed the border line.

The signal sent by the forward observation post using Morse code showed: Iraq had deployed at least forty mixed T-62 and T-54 armored units, entering Iranian territory in three routes. The central route was the heaviest, pointing directly at the Abadan highway on the east bank of the Shatt al-Arab.

This was the result of Reza's prediction, accurate to the letter.

He did not issue any new orders because the orders had already been laid out—every soldier at every position knew what to do at what time and under what circumstances. Reza's work was basically completed the moment the missiles launched.

What remained was waiting.

Waiting is the most uncomfortable part of war—not because you are doing nothing, but because after doing everything you can do, you can only watch your plan unfold in reality and accept the possibility that it might deviate from expectations.

Reza felt a strange sense of calm in this waiting.

It was not because he didn't care, but because he had already cared for five years. Five years of preparation, five years of calculation, five years of planning, finally compressed into these few hours tonight. Whatever the result would be, it was not something he could decide now—all decisions had already been made in every choice over the past five years.

At 3:44 AM, the first explosion was heard.

It wasn't just one sound, but a whole series—dense, continuous, muffled thuds coming from a distance, like a string of firecrackers being ignited underground and exploding in sequence.

An expression appeared on Hassan's face—not a smile, but a very restrained sense of satisfaction that only those who were well-trained could recognize.

"Minefield hit," the forward observer's radio came through, with a suppressed excitement in his voice, "The central armored cluster is blocked before the second line of defense; at least seven tanks have lost mobility. Two are on fire—"

"Status of the northern route?" Reza asked.

"The northern route has slowed down before the first feint formation and is probing."

"The southern route?"

"The southern route is advancing the fastest; it has already passed the first feint formation and is approaching the second—"

"Launch site four," Reza turned to Farrokhzad, "Now. Target the forward position of the southern armored cluster, single shot for probing, not saturation."

"Single shot?" Farrokhzad paused for a second.

"Single shot," Reza confirmed, "Let them know there are missiles, but don't expose all of our positions."

This was a subtle psychological tactic—a single missile hitting the area in front of the southern armored cluster would immediately make the Iraqi commander realize two things: first, Iran possessed precision strike capability; second, Iran had not yet used all of this capability. This feeling of "still having hidden cards in hand" would generate greater psychological pressure on the battlefield than any actual strike.

The missile from launch site four launched at 3:51 AM, landing in an open area in front of the southern armored cluster, about sixty meters from the nearest tank. It didn't hit any target directly, but the shockwave from the explosion caused the two nearest tanks to stop.

Then came a longer pause—for a full four minutes, the southern armored cluster neither advanced nor retreated; it just stayed there.

Iraqi communications monitored by Karimi showed: the commander of the southern route had issued two calls for artillery support during these four minutes, but the artillery side—which had already been crippled by Reza's missiles—replied with "Unable to provide support."

What would an armored unit that had lost its artillery choose to do when it was unclear about the enemy's positions?

Most commanders would choose to wait.

The Iraqi commander of the southern route chose exactly that.

And this wait gave Hassan's rapid reaction force enough time.

At 4:15 AM, Hassan launched the attack.

It was not an all-out offensive, but a precision clearance targeted at the trapped armored cluster in the central route—a fifty-man elite action group, divided into five squads, each carrying an RPG-7 and a large number of incendiary bombs, approached the seven tanks in the central route simultaneously from three directions.

Tanks that have lost their mobility, without infantry protection, are moving iron coffins.

This tactic was not invented by Reza—it had been used countless times throughout the history of Middle East wars—but it was executed with exceptional precision and neatness tonight because Hassan's fifty men had been preparing for this moment for a full three months; every early morning simulation training was for this moment.

The first tank was destroyed at 4:23 AM; the burning fuel turned it into a bonfire that could be seen by everyone in the darkness. After seeing the first tank destroyed, the commander of the second tank opened the hatch to try to escape, but was taken out by one of Hassan's snipers with a single shot. The third and fourth tanks were hit by RPGs one after another, turning into scrap metal amidst their respective explosions.

The crews of the remaining three tanks chose to surrender.

The entire process took eleven minutes.

When Hassan reported the battle results to Reza via radio, his voice was still very steady: "Seven tanks in the central route; four destroyed, three captured, the crews have surrendered. We have two lightly wounded, no one killed in action."

Hearing the words "no one killed in action," a string in Reza's mind that had been taut for nearly two hours loosened slightly.

"What about the northern and southern routes?" he asked.

"The northern route is now retreating," Karimi said, "The southern route is still waiting."