85: Chapter 82 The Southern Armored Group

At 5:00 AM, something completely unexpected happened to Reza.

The commander of the southern Iraq armored group, after waiting for nearly an hour, made a decision that Reza had not anticipated: instead of choosing to retreat, he chose to continue pushing forward—but changed direction, no longer taking the Abadan highway, but attempting to detour via a more southern farm road to bypass the known minefields.

This was a smart choice, indicating that the commander of the southern group was an experienced man. His judgment was correct—there were indeed no mines on that farm road.

But what he did not know was that the end of that road was a "pocket" that Reza had specifically left behind.

What was that pocket? It was a stretch of street in the suburbs of Abadan, lined on both sides with concrete buildings, narrow enough that it was no more than twelve meters wide, making it impossible for two tanks to pass side-by-side. In the buildings on both sides of that street, Reza had pre-deployed twenty anti-tank teams, each consisting of three men, all carrying simplified versions of rocket launchers.

The thirteen tanks of the southern Iraq armored group filed into that street at 5:22 AM.

When the first tank reached the middle of the street, all twenty teams opened fire simultaneously.

This was not war; it was a massacre—only it was a massacre of steel, not people.

In that stretch of street, which was no more than three hundred meters long, all thirteen tanks lost their combat capability within seventeen minutes; seven were destroyed directly, and six were immobilized after being hit, their crews abandoning the vehicles amidst the smoke and flames.

The commander of the southern Iraq armored group was the last one to leave his tank. He climbed out of the turret, hands raised, standing on the burning tank, looking at the approaching Iran soldiers, and said one sentence—Karimi later told Reza that, translated, it meant:

"I do not know what you prepared, but I have never seen this kind of fighting style."

At 6:00 AM sharp, Reza walked out of the underground command post.

Standing outside, he saw the full picture of the battlefield for the first time—the eastern sky was just beginning to turn white, and in the distance, there were several fires still burning, with oil smoke drifting westward in the morning breeze.

The final figures from the battle report arrived one after another over the next two hours:

The actual force of the Iraq cross-border incursion involved fifty-eight armored vehicles, of which forty-one were destroyed or captured within Iran territory, while the other seventeen chose to retreat after the battle began; of those, eight stepped on their own minefields on the Iraq side of the border during the retreat, resulting in the loss of three vehicles.

There were approximately three hundred and forty Iraq soldiers who entered Iran territory, of whom about one hundred and ten were killed in action, one hundred and seventy-six were captured, and the rest went missing in the chaos or fled back into Iraq territory.

Iran's losses: nine killed in action, twenty-three wounded.

Reza went over these figures in his mind, then instructed Karimi:

"Prepare two reports. Send one to Tehran, to Ayatollah Khomeini. The other—" He paused, "forward it through our channels in Amman to several Western news agencies. Do not embellish the content; just include the battle result figures from tonight, plus one sentence."

"What sentence?" Karimi asked.

Reza said: "The Republic of Iran welcomes anyone willing to test our border defense capabilities to try again."

When Karimi heard this sentence, he was stunned for two seconds, then realized the lethality of these words—it was not a threat, but an insult. It was telling the whole world: Iran did not just hold its ground, it held it with ease, with such ease that they were willing to welcome the next challenge.

This stance was more powerful than any diplomatic statement.

"Send it," Karimi said, "I will go send it right now."

Reza did not speak again; he turned and walked back to the command post, took out the dark blue notebook, and under the line "Countdown to the first shot: fifteen days," he wrote a line:

"The first night, as scheduled."

He closed the notebook; tonight's battle was over.

But this war was just beginning.