190 ISLAM AT WAR
22 in the Sush-Dezful area and lasted a week. Iran deployed 40,000–
50,000 troops and 30,000 Revolutionary Guards. The Iraqis faced this
assault with 40,000 men. The combined-arms operations of both sides
made effective use of infantry, artillery, armor, and close air support. The
Iranians inflicted a humiliating defeat on the Iraqis in this operation and
are reported to have taken between 15,000 and 20,000 Iraqi soldiers
prisoner.
The Iranians then launched Operation Jerusalem on April 24 to clear
Khuzistan completely. As in the previous offensive, the Iranians used a
mixture of classical military maneuvers and guerrilla tactics. After two
weeks of bitter fighting the Iranians drove the Iraqis out of the Ahvaz-
Susangerd area and pushed a bridgehead to the west bank of the Karun
River near Taheria and Haloub. This threatened to cut off the Iraqi forces
besieging Khorramshahr and was followed by an Iranian assault on Khor-
ramshahr with 70,000 troops. The Iraqis, faced with the prospect of losing
the 30,000–40,000 men besieging Khorramshahr, withdrew them before
they could be surrounded and captured. Despite this timely retreat, Iraq
lost 12,000 prisoners and large quantities of military equipment.
Faced with defeat, the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, decided to with-
draw from Iranian territory. He used the Israeli invasion of Lebanon to
cover his decision, announcing that his troops were withdrawing on June
20, 1982. The Iranians were not to be placated and prepared yet another
offensive. Once launched, it encountered a solid, well-entrenched Iraqi
defense and broke. Between July 13 and August 2, Iran sent out 100,000
men (four regular divisions and 50,000 Pasdaran and Basij) in five con-
secutive attacks. Though they did penetrate five to ten miles into Iraqi
territory, they did not break the Iraqi lines. Iraq responded with nonlethal
tear gas, reported to have stopped the attack of one Iranian division. To
support Iraq in its war, both Egypt and Jordan provided many volunteer
soldiers to serve with the Iraqi army. These were supported by a steady
flow of arms and equipment from both the United States and the Soviet
Union, but the Soviets had also provided, by 1982, 1,500 military advisers.
Though the Iraqis were more sophisticated than the Iranians when it came
to operating military equipment, they still required substantial technical
support and other military support.
Iran continued to launch numerous offensives during the summer and
autumn of 1982, but none were successful. The Pasdaran and Basij became
the backbone of the Iranian attacks, and the regular army reduced its
participation to a minimal level. By this time, the Iranian regular army,
deprived of resupply for its American and British equipment, and suffering
from the revolutionary purge of its officer corps, became almost combat