Iran-Iraq War

The Iran-Iraq War, also called the First Persian Gulf War, or the Imposed War (جنگ تحمیلی) in Iran, was a war between the armed forces of Iraq and Iran lasting from September 1980 to August 1988. It was commonly referred to as the (Persian) Gulf War until the Iraq-Kuwait conflict (1990–91), which became known as the Second Persian Gulf War and later simply the Persian Gulf War.

Human Wave Attacks in the Iran-Iraq War

Many people claim that the Iran-Iraq conflict spawned a particularly gruesome variant of the "Human Wave" attack. The Iranian clergy, with no professional military training, were slow to adopt and apply professional military doctrine. The country at that time lacked sufficient equipment to breach Iraqi minefields and were not willing to risk their small tank force. Therefore, Pasdaran forces and Basij volunteers were often used to sweep over minefields and entrenched positions developed by the more professional Iraqi military. Allegedly, unarmed human wave tactics involving children as young as 9 were employed. One unnamed East European journalist is reported to have seen "tens of thousands of children, roped together in groups of about 20 to prevent the faint-hearted from deserting, make such an attack."http://countrystudies.us/iraq/104.htm

Related Topics:
Pasdaran - Basij

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There has been a suggestion that girls were more commonly used for frontline mine clearance, and boys for unarmed "assaults". Reliable firsthand accounts of the use of children in human wave attacks are rare, however. The most serious contemporary firsthand account recently surfaced at the end of an articlehttp://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20041104.html by the technology journalist Robert X. Cringely, who relates the experience of a trip to the front for an unconnected Penthouse magazine assignment. However in recent years the credibility of Cringely's claims have suffered after it was revealed in 1998, that Cringely had falsely claimed a Ph.D. from Stanford University. (The Stanford Daily, Nov 11, 1998)

Related Topics:
Robert X. Cringely - Penthouse

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