Talk:People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran/Archive 45

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Removal of scholarly source

Idealigic can you explain this removal of a scholarly source cited material that Saddam ordered the operation?VR _talk 15:53, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

I reinstated longstanding version because Saddam making orders to the NLA seems WP:UNDUE. If I'm wrong, then please provide more sources which say Saddam made such orders to the NLA and we will compare them to other sources. Idealigic (talk) 12:59, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

The view that Saddam ordered the attack comes from a WP:SCHOLARLY source published by Harvard University Press. Is that not enough? Here's a book published by University Press of Kentucky that says the unsuccessful attack on 26-28 July...That mission was personally assigned to the group by Saddam. Please self-revert.VR _talk 01:09, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Why don’ t we quote the second source saying Saddam “assigned” the attack on 26-28 July to the Iranian National Liberation Army “after the successful conquest of Mehran a month earlier, based on the Iraqi’s assumption that the Iranian Army had been considerably weakened and that an additional atack there might be just as successful as the Iraqi liberation battles.”

The rest of the text in that source is also very insightful, we should also include it:

• " On 26 July the Mujahidin Khalq reported that a number of its divisions had opened a large-scale attack in western Iran whose objective was the city of Kermanshah. They claimed to have taken control of two cities - Karand and Eslam Abad Gharb - on the main road leading to Kermanshah. The forces passed through territory inside Iran that had been conquered by Iraq eastward into the Iranian heartland. In its course, they took many Iranian prisoners and seized large amounts of plunder. According to their reports, the residents of the two conquered cities had received their “liberators” warmly. In the battles that took place during the operation, the 27th Division of the Revolutionary Guards, which was deployed in the city of Eslam Abad Ghard, was seriously damaged. However, the Mujahidin were not successful, and their forces did not succeed in advancing eastward toward Hamadan, but were blocked by a counterattack mounted by Iranian reinforcements (Operation “Mersad” on 27 July). The Mujahidin were forced to retreat from the cities they had occupied 72 hours earlier. Their report claimed that they had retreated in order to regroup for further operations directed at bringing down the iranian regime. The Iraqis hurriedly contradicted the Iranian’s accusations that the operation had been carried out by their forces, which had in fact remained at Serbil Zehab and Ghilan-e-Gharb.”

We can also include the other sources that you and Mhhossein have been stonewalling from being included:

• " In spring 1987, the NLA launched its first major operation, code-named "Shining Sun," in the southern province of Khuzistan. Women were organized into two separate brigades, and, for the first time, took the field and fought face-to-face with Khomeini's forces on the front lines. The enemy's forces were shocked to find themselves captured by one of the women's brigades. Scenes of their capture, their surprise evident for all to see, were featured in some of the world's leading newspapers. Despite all the objections you have heard, women were fighting on the frontlines and reality was laid bare. Like their male counterparts, the women of the NLA demonstrated they were capable and qualified. These units took part in the "Forty Stars" operation together, during which the strategic city of Mehran in western Iran was conquered. One of the Khomeini regime's best-armored units was destroyed, and billions of dollars in tanks and weapons were seized as booty. Fifteen hundred of the regime's soldiers were taken prisoner. Immediately after this operation, only a week later, the National Liberation Army staged the "Eternal Light" operation. "Eternal Light was the NLA's largest operation and penetrated 150 kilometers into Iran. The fighting raged over four days. Two cities were liberated, and the NLA reached the gates of Kermanshah, the largest city in western Iran. The Khomeini regime suffered 55,000 casualties in this operation, the first in which women commanded many divisions and brigades. The operation, and in particular the fighting spirit of the NLA's women, had a tremendous impact”

• "The women trained to drive tanks, fire mortars, and conduct an invasion, which launched in 1987 with operations Shining Sun, Forty Stars, and Eternal Light. The NLA claims to have killed 55,000 Iranians before being forced to retreat."

• "On June 19, 1988, the NLA launched another offensive called “Chetel Setareh or “Operation Forty Stars” where twenty-two MEK brigades recaptured Mehran."

• " On 26 July the NLA, advancing under heavy Iraqi air cover, seized Karand and Islamabad-e Gharb.”

• "while according to the MEK, “absolutely no Iraqi soldiers participated in this operation”. Iraqi Minister Latif Nassif Jassim too denied Iraq deploying air units to help the NLA or that it used chemical weapons to drive Islamic Republic soldiers from Mehran.”

• "In July of 1988, the NLA carried out Operation Mersad (also known as "operation Eternal Light) “in which the two Khuzestani towns of Kerand and Eslamabad were ‘liberated’ from the regime’s troops”. MEK press displayed photos of NLA troops in action and destroyed Iranian regime weapons and equipment.

• "on 29 July the NLA announced a voluntary withdrawal from Islamabad-e Gharb and Karand”

• "In another report by the Komite presented to the Islamic Republic on 15 August 1988, it found that "the more people defected from the Iranian army as a result of the Mojahedin's operations, the more frequent and larger they became." Komite members said in the report that it didn’t know how to prevent MEK achievements, which "had enabled the NLA to conquer Mehran".

• "According to MEK intelligence, the Islamic Republic set up a "Psychological Welfare Committee" made of clergymen chosen by Ayatollah Khomeini. This committee emerged as a think tank. An intelligence document gathered by the MEK said that the Komite advised their leadership that it "had to take the Mojahedin’s speedy developments and attacks seriously as they had demonstrated their ability to penetrate Iranian territory and destroy one of the Iranian brigades".

• "The Mojahedin launched a series of offensives against front-line pasdaran positions. On March 27 of 1988, a brigade-level campaign pushing deep into Khuzistan along an impressive thirty-kilometer front was launched by the NLA and succeeded in capturing 600-kilometer of regime territory along with 508 pasdaran and soldiers from the Iranian 77th infantry division. In this offensive, which was code-named “Operation Bright Sun” and was detailed in an interview later granted by Rajavi, an alleged 2,000 Islamic Republic soldiers were killed and $100 million worth of regime weaponry and equipment was captured and displayed for foreign journalists. The NLA had scored its first victory as a conventional fighting force, and it hoped to bring the regime to its knees, both through its propaganization of the successful offensive and through its new armed program. On June 19, 1988, the NLA launched its offensive entitled Chetel Setareh or “40 Stars” in which twenty-two organized brigades of Mojahedin recaptured the city of Mehran, which the regime had wrested from Iraqi control after the Mojahedin had set up its “provisional government” there. The Mojahedin claimed that absolutely no Iraqi soldiers participated in this operation, and Iraqi Culture and Information Minister, Latif Nusayyif Jasim, later denied that Iraq had deployed air units to help the NLA or had used chemical weapons to drive the Islamic Republic’s troops from Mehran. In July of that year, a more protracted operation named Mersad or “Eternal Brilliance” was initiated in which the two Khuzestani twins of Kerand and Eslamabad were “liberated” from the regime’s troops. Mojahed press organs displayed pictorials of NLA troops in action, destroyed regime equipment and armored vehicles, surrendered pasdaran and road signs, with the Islamic Republic, marking the direction of the two towns."

• The fanatical legions of the Ayatullah Khomeini suffered another embarrassing defeat last week, this one apparently inflicted by their countrymen. In a cross-border strike from their base in Iraq, the National Liberation Army of the People's Mujahedin, a leftist Iranian dissident group, seized the border town of Mehran and drove its pro-Khomeini defenders beyond the surrounding hills. N.L.A. spokesmen claimed to have killed and wounded as many as 8,000 Iranian troops during the ten-hour battle, code-named Operation Forty Stars. Western reporters brought to the battle scene confirmed that the rebels had captured 1,500 Iranian prisoners, as well as tanks and artillery. Although the Iranians acknowledged their defeat at Mehran, they insisted it had been inflicted by Iraqi troops using chemical weapons. Baghdad denied any involvement in the battle. At week's end, however, Iraq did claim that its forces had recaptured the oil-rich Majnoun islands east of the Tigris River, where Iranian defenders had been entrenched since 1984."

• "In another report by the Komite presented to the Islamic Republic on 15 August 1988, it found that "the more people defected from the Iranian army as a result of the Mojahedin's operations, the more frequent and larger they became." Komite members said in the report that it didn’t know how to prevent MEK achievements, which "had enabled the NLA to conquer Mehran".

• "Right after the ceasefire went into effect, the MKO forces attacked Iran from Iraq in an operation they called Amaliyat-e Forough-e Javidaan [Operation Eternal Light], but referred to as Amaliyat-e Mersaad [Operations Trap] by the IRGC."

• "The reason for this new round of widespread executions was Operation Mersad, a military attack on Iranian forces by the Mojahedin-e Khalq."

• "A Komite report reached the conclusion that in order to prevent the MEK from achieving its goals, a strategy for collecting intelligence needed to be created. The Iran regime carried out the Komite's recommendation and started focusing its activities on MEK supporters in Iran (particularly in Iranian jailhouses). After the Iran-Iraq ceasefire agreement, the regime started executing Iranian citizens accused of assisting the MEK in Western Iran"

• "inflicting heavy casualties on the 77 Khorassan Division"

  Idealigic (talk) 08:54, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm fine with restoring my earlier edit with the word "ordered" replaced with "assigned" as a compromise. Regarding the rest of the text you proposed, wikipedia shows it to be 13,000 characters, which is too much for an article that is already too long. If you think this material is relevant then consider creating a separate article on History of the People's Mujahedin of Iran.VR _talk 04:00, 10 July 2021 (UTC)