Alwaght – Almost 30 years after
their martyrdom, 270 martyrs including 175 Iranian military divers were carried
by tens of thousands of Iranians on their shoulders in the country's capital
Tehran. Divers whose bodies were recently dug up in a mass grave from the Iraqi
side of the river border were captured during the 1980s war with Iraq.
A clear message was sent to all
those who oppose Iran that Iranians will stand firm next to their Islamic
Revolution and the option of resistance would be the their only reply to all
oppression they face from the Western world.
A large number of people took part
in the procession around Baharestan Square in downtown Tehran to pay respect to
the martyrs, whose coffins were carried draped in Iran’s national flags.
Pictures were circulated in Iranian
media showing the bodies dressed in diving gear and hands crudely tied with
wire. Regarding the fact that some of the bodies bore no signs of injury,
Tehran believes that they had been buried alive by their Iraqi captors.
Emotional crowds packed the
capital’s streets to commemorate the divers and other soldiers killed during
the war.
The divers were taken prisoner in
1986, during an Iranian attempt to seize Basra. Iraq repelled the attack and
thousands were killed on both sides.
"The divers were the bravest of
us... they gave their lives for the independence of our country and the success
of our revolution," Mohsen Rezaie, the the commander of Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corps IRGC, said in an address. "Iran's enemies stood
by Saddam for the whole eight years of the Sacred Defence," he added.
The divers were responsible for
breaking the enemy lines during an operation in 1986 with the aim of taking
Basra in southern Iraq, but the operation was discovered by the Iraqi army that
killed a large number of Iranian military and made others as prisoners.
Some of the retrieved bodies had
their hands tied and bore no scars, indicating that the martyrs were buried
alive by the forces of the former Iraqi Ba’ath regime during Operation
Karbala-4, said the commander of the Missing in Action (MIA) Search Committee
of the Iranian Armed Forces, Brigadier General Mohammad Baqerzadeh.
According to Baqerzadeh, the bodies
were brought into Iran via Shalamcheh border crossing in the southwestern
province of Khouzestan.
The images of the bodies that were
earlier released triggered a wave of sorrow and sympathy among Iranians from
all walks of life.
Operation Karbala-4 was launched
under the cover of darkness in late December 1986, and was meant to give
Iranian forces a foothold along the Arvand Roud waterway. The Iranian troops
would go on the offensive once across the waterway, and move onto the Iraqi
port city of Basra. However, the operation did not go as planned.
According to the head of Iran’s
Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Public Relations Office, Brigadier
General Ramazan Sharif, the deposed Iraqi Ba’ath regime was notified of
Operation Karbala-4 mainly through US intelligence operatives.
About 34 years ago, former Iraqi
dictator Saddam Hussein, supported by major Western and regional states,
launched a military invasion of Iran. It came less than two years after the
Islamic Revolution.
A large number of volunteers joined
the Iranian armed forces to defend their country against the Iraqi aggressor
under the leadership of the late founder of the Islamic Republic, Imam
Khomeini.
The imposed war is commemorated in
Iran every year as the eight years of Sacred Defense. Each year, Iranian Armed
Forces stage nationwide military parades to mark the war’s anniversary.
Despite the widespread Western soft
war against the values of the Islamic Revolution, the massive crowd at the
funeral of the lately found martyrs’ bodies portrays the very deep connection
between the fourth generation of the Islamic Revolution and the first
generation that actually fought on frontlines and gave out martyrs for the
revolution to remain. The Iranian people unity around the values of the
revolution and resistance sent a clear message to West saying that they will
stand strong in front of the P5+1 talks till Iran receives its complete rights.
