Operation Before The Dawn - Aftermath

Aftermath

Iran managed to regain 100 square miles (260 km2) of its own territory. But after a week of stalemate, Iran abandoned the operation after making only minimal gains against the Iraqis. Rafsanjani later retracted his earlier boast, saying that the offensive was not the last as expected. As for the Iraqis, this victory helped the poorly trained and shaken ground forces to boost their morale.

The Iranians suffered tremendous casualties clearing minefields and breaching Iraqi anti-tank mines surrounding Basra, which Iraqi engineers were unable to replace. Desperate, Iraq deployed its navy as a diversion and destroyed Iranian patrol craft in the Iranian port of Khor-Musa. The Iraqi Air Force was also effectively deployed, with fixed wing fighters massing fires on Iranian formations in the southern sector. After this battle, the vicious cycle of Iranian human wave assaults continued but not to the level of Operation Before the Dawn, or of the previous massive Iranian assaults of 1982.

In addition during April 1983, the Mandali-Baghdad northcentral sector witnessed fierce fighting, as Iranian attacks were stopped by Iraqi mechanised and infantry divisions. Casualties were high, and by the end of 1983, an estimated 120,000 Iranians and 60,000 Iraqis had been killed during the whole war. Despite these losses, in 1983 Iran held the advantage in the war of attrition.:2 By this time, it was estimated that more than 70 Iranian fighter aircraft were still operational at any given time, for that reason helicopters were more often used for close air support, because Iran had their own facilities from before the revolution to repair them