Battle
In early February 1983, 50,000 Iranian forces attacked westward from Dezful and were confronted by 55,000 Iraqi forces. The Iranian objective was to cut off the road from Basra to Baghdad in the central sector. They the attack on a rainy day and had hoped cloud cover would shield them from Iraqi air attacks. Once the clouds lifted, Iraq conducted 150 air sorties, which generated a 3 to 1 kill ratio of Iranians to Iraqis. The Iraqis, sensing the efficacy of close air attacks, directed aerial bombings on the cities of Dezful, Ahvaz, and Khorammshahr in retribution for the Iranian Dawn 1 offensive. The Iranians continued to order up more forces, and the 92nd Armoured Division pushed forward from Dezful to rout one Iraqi armoured division and destroy another.
Read more about this topic: Operation Dawn (1983)
Famous quotes containing the word battle:
“There is nothing more poetic and terrible than the skyscrapers’ battle with the heavens that cover them. Snow, rain, and mist highlight, drench, or conceal the vast towers, but those towers, hostile to mystery and blind to any sort of play, shear off the rain’s tresses and shine their three thousand swords through the soft swan of the fog.”
—Federico García Lorca (1898–1936)
“Fold up the banners! Smelt the guns!
Love rules, Her gentler purpose runs.
A mighty mother turns in tears
The pages of her battle years,
Lamenting all her fallen sons!”
—Will Henry Thompson (1848–1918)
“The mother’s battle for her child—with sickness, with poverty, with war, with all the forces of exploitation and callousness that cheapen human life—needs to become a common human battle, waged in love and in the passion for survival.”
—Adrienne Rich (20th century)