88: Chapter 85 Breaking the Formation

At 4:00 AM, Hassan's troops arrived at the perimeter of the Zubair Oilfield Pump Station.

The garrison at the Pump Station consisted of about three hundred men equipped with a small number of armored vehicles and anti-aircraft guns, but no tanks—all of Iraq's tanks had been moved to the front line to prepare for the third wave of the offensive, making the rear defenses almost negligible.

Hassan did not attack immediately.

He ordered his troops to stop two kilometers outside the Pump Station, then dispatched five teams, each consisting of three men, to approach the Pump Station on foot with the mission of destroying the Pump Station's power supply system.

At 4:25 AM, explosions rang out simultaneously from three directions around the Pump Station.

All the lights in the Pump Station went out.

The defenders fell into chaos in the darkness—they did not know what had happened, how many enemies had arrived, or which direction they should defend. The commander tried to contact his superiors via radio, but Hassan had used jamming equipment beforehand to cut off all communication between the Pump Station and the outside world.

On the battlefield, a unit that loses communication is effectively blind.

At 4:40 AM, Hassan launched the full-scale assault.

One hundred and twenty pickup trucks charged into the Pump Station from four directions simultaneously, each equipped with a heavy machine gun and an RPG. They were not there to occupy the Pump Station, but to clear it—using firepower to suppress every Iraqi soldier still resisting, and then having the infantry disembark to clear the buildings one by one.

The battle lasted less than forty minutes.

Of the three hundred defenders at the Pump Station, about sixty were killed, over two hundred surrendered, and fewer than forty managed to escape. On Hassan's side, twelve were killed and thirty-seven were wounded.

At 5:20 AM, Hassan said one sentence over the communication channel:

"The Pump Station is secured. Repeat, the Pump Station is secured."

When Reza heard this, he was commanding the main force of the southern route as they crossed the riverbed.

"Hold it," he replied. "I will arrive in two hours."

At 5:30 AM, the sky began to brighten.

Reza's convoy appeared on the desert highway inside Iraq. Three hundred vehicles stretched for over five kilometers, resembling a long dragon in the morning light. Iraqi reconnaissance planes soon discovered them, but it was already too late—the Iranian armored forces had already penetrated over thirty kilometers into Iraqi territory, while the main Iraqi force was still waiting at the border to launch the third wave of the offensive.

Saddam Hussein's entire operational plan was completely disrupted at this moment.

Upon learning that the Pump Station had fallen, the commander of the Iraqi southern defensive line made two decisions: first, to immediately withdraw two armored brigades from the front line for reinforcements; second, to report to Baghdad and request urgent support.

Both decisions were correct, but they were too late.

From the front line to the Pump Station, the shortest road was eighty kilometers. The marching speed of armored units in the desert was at most twenty kilometers per hour. Including the time for organization, refueling, and ammunition resupply, it would take at least four to five hours to arrive.

But Reza only needed two hours to reach the Pump Station.

This two-hour time difference was the core of the entire counterattack plan.

At 7:15 AM, Reza arrived at the Pump Station.

The first thing he did after getting out of the vehicle was not to inspect the positions, but to find Hassan and ask: "Can your men hold on?"

"We can hold," Hassan said, "but we need more ammunition. We have consumed nearly sixty percent of our anti-tank ammunition and nearly half of our heavy machine gun rounds."

Reza turned and said to Najjari: "Notify the rear. The first supply convoy must depart within two hours. At the same time, have Fatima pull out all the ammunition in stock, with priority given to anti-tank ammunition."

Najjari nodded and went to make the arrangements.

Reza then walked to the control room of the Pump Station and took a look at the equipment inside—it was intact and undamaged. This meant that once power was restored, the Pump Station could continue to operate. And a functioning Pump Station was a trump card in Iran's hands.

"Karimi," Reza said, "help me contact Tehran. Tell the Supreme Defense Council that we have captured the Zubair Oilfield Pump Station. From now on, every barrel of oil exported from the Zubair Oilfield will require Iran's approval."

Karimi smiled: "Should I relay this word for word?"

"Relay it word for word," Reza said. "Do not change a single character."

At 9:00 AM, Baghdad.

When Saddam Hussein received the news of the Pump Station's fall, he was discussing the timetable for the third wave of the offensive with his military advisors.

He finished reading the report and remained silent for a full thirty seconds.

Then he asked a question: "Is that prince at the Pump Station?"

"Yes," Halallah said, "our intelligence shows that he personally commanded this operation."

Saddam Hussein nodded and said something that surprised everyone present:

"This man is more dangerous than any opponent I have encountered before."

This was not an angry outburst; it was a real judgment made by a dictator under extreme pressure. Saddam Hussein had seen many opponents—the Shah of Iran, Kurdish rebels, the archenemy Syria, the generals of Israel—but no one had prepared for five years right under his nose like Reza, only to strike him at the time and place he least expected.

"Order," Saddam Hussein said, "immediately withdraw two more divisions from the Northern Military District and assemble them in the south. At the same time, notify the Air Force to conduct continuous airstrikes on the Pump Station. I want that prince to last no more than forty-eight hours in the Pump Station."

"Withdraw two divisions from the north?" Halallah hesitated, "The northern defensive line will become very weak."

"The northern defensive line can be abandoned temporarily," Saddam Hussein said, "but the Pump Station cannot be lost. If the Pump Station is lost, the Zubair Oilfield is useless. If the Zubair Oilfield is useless, our oil revenue is gone. Without oil revenue, we cannot continue fighting this war."

At 11:00 AM, Reza received intelligence relayed by Karimi.

Iraq was withdrawing two divisions from the north to assemble in the south, and the Air Force was ready to conduct airstrikes on the Pump Station.

"Two divisions," Hassan said, "plus the two brigades that returned from the front line earlier, that's a total force of at least thirty thousand. We only have less than two thousand men."

"Manpower is not the issue," Reza said. "The issue is whether they can drive us out within forty-eight hours."

"What do you mean?"

"We don't need to hold the Pump Station for too long," Reza said. "We only need to hold it long enough for Saddam Hussein to realize that he cannot take it back using conventional means. By then, he will start considering negotiations. And negotiations are our true goal."

"Negotiations?" Rajai interjected. "Aren't we fighting a war? How did it suddenly turn into negotiations?"

"War and negotiations have never been two separate things," Reza said. "They are two stages of the same thing. War is to obtain on the negotiating table what you cannot get during peacetime; negotiations are to confirm what you have already obtained on the battlefield. What we are doing now is gathering enough bargaining chips on the battlefield and then making Saddam Hussein acknowledge the validity of these chips at the negotiating table."

Rajai was silent for a moment, then said: "I understand."

At 1:00 PM, the Iraqi Air Force's first wave of airstrikes began.

Six MiG-23s, each carrying two 500-kilogram bombs, targeted the Pump Station's control room and oil storage tanks.

Reza had made preparations in advance—he had deployed twelve ZSU-23-4 self-propelled anti-aircraft guns around the Pump Station. These were anti-aircraft weapons transferred from home, specifically designed to deal with low-flying fighter jets.

The airstrike lasted about twenty minutes. Iraq dropped twelve bombs, three of which hit the oil storage tank area of the Pump Station, causing a fire, but the control room and the core facilities of the Pump Station remained intact. The Iranian anti-aircraft unit claimed to have shot down one MiG-23 and damaged two others.

After the airstrike ended, Reza walked to the oil storage tank area, looked at the burning flames, and said to Hassan:

"From now on, Iraqi airstrikes will become more frequent. Have all personnel enter the bunkers; do not operate in the open unless necessary. At the same time, notify Fatima that I need more anti-aircraft weapons—anti-aircraft guns, missiles, anything, as long as it can shoot down planes."

"Can she get them?" Hassan asked.

"She cannot, but I can," Reza said. "The Soviet Union will re-evaluate our value once they see that we have won a battle inside Iraqi territory. This is a bargaining chip for negotiations, and I will use it to exchange for more weapons."