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Operation Forty Stars
Part of the Iran–Iraq War
Date
18 June 1988
Location
Mehran County, Iran
Result
MEK victory
Successful MEK offensive
Iranian defensive failure
Territorial changes
MEK captures Mehran from the Iranian forces
Belligerents
MEK
Iran
Commanders and leaders
Massoud Rajavi
Ruhollah Khomeini Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani Ali Shahbazi
Strength
22 PMOI brigades
16,000 (PMOI claim)
Casualties and losses
PMOI 71 dead (PMOI claim) 240 wounded (PMOI claim)[1] Thousands dead (Iranian claim)[1]
8,000 dead and wounded (PMOI claim)[1] 1,500–3,000 captured[2][3] 40 tanks 20 APCs numerous 155mm and 130mm artillery pieces numerous TOW ATGMs numerous HAWK SAM batteries, and hundreds of small arms, mortars and machineguns captured[1][2]
v
t
e
Iran–Iraq War
Pre-war incidents
1975 Algiers Agreement
Iranian Revolution
1979 Kurdish rebellion in Iran
1979 Khuzestan insurgency
Iranian Embassy siege
Iraqi invasion of Iran (1980)
Iraqi airstrike
Revenge
Kaman 99
1st Khorramshahr
Scorch Sword
Dezful
Sultan 10
Abadan
Morvarid
Stalemate (1981)
Nasr
H-3
Opera
Iranian offensives to free Iranian territory (1981–82)
Samen-ol-A'emeh
Tariq-ol-Qods
Fath-ol-Mobin
Beit-ol-Moqaddas (2nd Khorramshahr)
Iranian offensives in Iraq (1982–84)
Ramadan (1st Basra)
Moslem Ibn Aqil
Muharram ol-Harram
Before the Dawn
Dawn 1
Dawn 2
Dawn 3
Dawn 4
Dawn 5 (2nd Basra)
Kheibar (3rd Basra)
Kurdish rebellion (1983)
Dawn 6
Dawn 7
Marshes
Iranian offensives in Iraq (1985–87)
Badr (4th Basra)
Dawn 8 (1st al-Faw)
Dawn 9
Karbala 1 (Mehran)
Karbala 2
Karbala 3
Fath 1
Karbala 4 (5th Basra)
Karbala 5 (6th Basra)
Karbala 6
Karbala 7
Karbala 8 (7th Basra)
Karbala 9
Karbala 10
Nasr 4
Final stages (1988)
Beit-ol-Moqaddas 2
Anfal campaign
Beit-ol-Moqaddas 3
Dawn 10
Halabja massacre
Beit-ol-Moqaddas 4
Zafar 7
Tawakalna ala Allah (2nd al-Faw)
Forty Stars
Eternal Light
Mersad
Tanker War
June 5 1984 Skirmish
Earnest Will
Bridgeton incident
Prime Chance
Eager Glacier
Nimble Archer
Praying Mantis
International incidents
1981 Iraqi embassy bombing in Beirut
USS Stark incident
Iran Air Flight 655
Operation Forty Stars (Persian: عملیات چلچراغ), also known as Operation Forty Lights, or Chelcheraq, was a military operation conducted by the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) at the closing stages of the Iran–Iraq War on 18 June 1988.[4] The goal was to occupy the Iranian border city of Mehran to control its oil fields, as well as Kurdish villages in the region.
In four days, the People's Mujahedin of Iran wiped out a Pasdaran division, seizing Mehran and building a bridgehead twelve miles into Iran.[5]
^ abcdCite error: The named reference AP was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ ab"CORI Research Analysis" (PDF). CORI. 21 September 2009.
^"The Gulf: Fraternal Drubbing". Time. 4 July 1988. Retrieved 7 May 2019. 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.
^Piazza, James A. (October 1994). "The Democratic Islamic Republic of Iran in Exile". Digest of Middle East Studies. 3 (4): 9–43. doi:10.1111/j.1949-3606.1994.tb00535.x. 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.
^Razoux, Pierre (2015). The Iran-Iraq War. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674915718.
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