One year after Kheibar and Badr Operations on wetland, another operation called Val-Fajr-8 was launched to cross the turbulent Arvand River. With the change of the battle theater from land to the waters of Hur-ol-Howeizeh in Kheibar and Badr Operations, the initiative fell in the hands of Iranian forces. Thus, the Iraqi Ba'athist army was bewildered as it faced a situation that was quite different from the classical wars.

It took quite a while for Saddam's regime to adapt the Iraqi combat organization with the new conditions on the battlefield. Meanwhile, Iranian forces were given the opportunity to design another major operation using the experiences of Kheibar and Badr operations. Of course, during this period, a series of small-scale operations was conducted to keep the fronts active, mainly on the wetland. The Ba'athist army concentrated mainly on defense whereas Iran was planning to launch Val-Fajr-8 operation in order to push the invading army further back. In view of this, the first defensive lines were reinforced on the Iraqi side via intensive engineering activities and equipping the fronts with a variety of barriers and minefields; although they also staged small assaults on the positions of the Iranian forces. The Iraqi army sought to change its strategy in 1984 from absolute defense to mobile defense and was planning to build such a capacity. In the winter of 1985, Iran was planning to deal a final blow to the Ba'athist regime through launching a fateful operation to achieve its goals and end the war.

The speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly and the commander of war, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, said before the start of Val-Fajr-8 operation, in the gathering of commanders: "You must cross the Arvand River, go to the other side, seize Faw region and we will finish the war."

Faw is a peninsula surrounded by Arvand River, the Persian Gulf, and Khur Abdullah inlet, which leads to Basra through land. On the north, Arvand River and Abadan Island are located and 90 km on northwest there is the industrial city of Basra. On the south Khur Abdullah is located and on southeast is the Persian Gulf and on southwest Um al-Qasr port is located.

Faw peninsula is affected by the tidal waters of the Persian Gulf and the permanent moisture resulting from it. That is, a large part of the land is a marshland of salt. For this reason, except the distance between the river and the first road of Faw-Basra, which is cultivable, the rest of the area is salt marsh and becomes slippery and sticky with the least rainfall. Thus, it is almost impossible to transport any heavy vehicle or equipment through the area. Arvand River is formed by the confluence of the two rivers of the Tigris and Euphrates in Iraq and Karun River in Iran. The river flows from the north to the south leading to the Persian Gulf. Arvand River is affected mainly by the high tide and low tide of the Persian Gulf which is repeated four times during 24 hours a day. The highest tide reaches 25 meters while the lowest tide is three and a half meters. The residential part of Faw, its piers (Chahar Cheragh, Ma'amer and Qeshleh), as well as its industrial and oil facilities, were all within the range of Iran's artillery; yet the Islamic Republic just launched attacks to the industrial facilities and piers of the region.

The geography of Faw operational area faced the IRGC commanders with a special situation meaning that, on the one hand, positive factors gave the promise of victory and a new turning point in the war; while on the other hand, great barriers appeared, each of which could be a deterrent on the way of operation. In fact, this required the adoption of special tactics.

Among different operational tactics and methods of combat, amphibious operations, especially crossing a river, are the most complicated type of military move. Arvand River, with 4 times of tide during 24 hours, has a change of width from 500 and 2000 meters, and the beginning and end of the high tide and low tide have specific features. At a given time, the water flow differs on the banks, in the middle, the surface and depth of the river. Hence, in order to cross such a river, it required to do precise calculations on water flows, adopt appropriate tactics for infantry crossing and breaking the line, design for the crossing of heavy vehicles, create makeshift shores for transportation and installation of suitable bridges. Due to the complexity of the operation, special facilities had to be provided that were mainly based on innovation of the forces and commanders. For instance, installing the bridge on Arvand River was one of the major problems of the operation. However, the needed bridges were manufactured inside the country.

One of the features of Iran's operations during the imposed war was the principle of surprise. For this reason, several deceptive plans were carried out for a major operation. In view of the efforts of the Iraqi Ba'athist army to gather information via the MKO terrorists, any surprise tactic required removal of numerous obstacles and tackling many problems. Therefore, in addition to intelligence measures, certain acts were taken to deceive the Ba'athist enemy, in particular for the movement of forces. Near the Val-Fajr- 8 operation, there were some replacements in the enemy lines, which was a sign of their surprise. At a meeting held in Iraq's 16th division, part of the artillery in the general area of Arvand was transferred to the general area of eastern Tigris.

In order to successfully carry out the Val-Fajr-8 operation, the whole IRGC and scores of thousands of Basiji volunteer forces, as well as the army and IRGC artillery units, the Hawk and Rapier missiles and six army divisions with a number of airborne helicopters and aircrafts were mobilized to carry out the operation. Such mobilization was unprecedented during the war. Khatam Al-Anbia Headquarters commanded the army and IRGC bases. Some of the operations during the 8-year holy defence were launched on the enemy soil to repel the Baathist invasion. One of the most important operations was to launch an attack on Faw Peninsula on the Iraqi soil. In terms of adopting the proper operational strategy, applying highly precise tactics, as well as a decisive political and military value it was very significant. Such operations that took place on the Iraqi soil, were not launched for military conquest of Iraq but their main objective was to force the Iraqi dictator and its supporters in Washington, London, and elsewhere to come to their senses and submit to the legal demands of the Iranian nation. These operations were also meant to prevent any would-be enemy of even imagining to attack Iran.

FK/RM/ME