Reactions to Mohsen Rezaei’s Recent Tweet; Was the Death of Thousands of Iranian Soldiers Merely for a ‘Deception’?

Mohsen Rezaei’s recent tweet, the former IRGC commander during the eight-year Iran-Iraq War, regarding Operation Karbala Four, has provoked numerous reactions from Twitter users. While he has claimed this operation was for “deceiving the enemy,” users and even some families of those killed in the operation argue that sacrificing thousands of Iranian soldiers for what he calls a deception is a “crime,” and that Mohsen Rezaei and senior officials should be tried.

Mohsen Rezaei in a tweet described Operation Karbala Four as an operation to deceive the enemy, writing: “If a historical analyst is deceived in understanding that deception, then woe to his writings.” Apparently, he wrote this tweet while in a verbal dispute with a senior government official.

He wrote about more details of this operation in another tweet: “With Operation Karbala Four, we made the enemy believe that our annual operation was only this. Ten days later, at the same location and at a time when the Ba’athist army forces were on leave, we carried out Operation Karbala Five.”

Operation Karbala Four took place in December 1986, following which thousands of Iranian forces were killed and went missing. Although no precise figures on the casualties and missing persons from this operation have been officially announced to date, Hashemi Rafsanjani, the commander of the war at the time, cited Ali Shamkhani, the deputy commander of the IRGC, in his memoirs of December 10, stating Iranian forces’ casualties as “one thousand martyrs, 3,900 missing, and 11,000 wounded.” Some sources have estimated the number of Iranian casualties to be much higher, up to 12,000 people. Iraqi television broadcast footage of a large number of Iranian casualties, indicating very high casualties among Iranian forces. The New York Times reported more than ten thousand deaths at that time.

Last year, the discovery of 175 bodies of divers from Operation Karbala Four made headlines as the bloodiest operation for Iranian forces in the Iran-Iraq War. Previously, the “leak” of this operation was cited as the reason for its failure.

However, the former IRGC commander’s recent tweets about Operation Karbala Four have raised a new issue. Mohsen Rezaei this time described the execution of Operation Karbala Four as a kind of deception of the Iraqis and as a prelude to carrying out Operation Karbala Five.

Most users criticized the fact that Operation Karbala Four, which had the highest casualty rate of Iranian forces in the Iran-Iraq War, was supposedly merely to deceive the Iraqis.

میرحسین از اعدام‌های دهه ۶۰ بی‌خبر بوده!
رفسنجانی از #کربلای_چهار بی‌خبر بوده!
خاتمی از وضع کوی دانشگاه بی‌خبر بوده!
روحانی از افزایش قیمت ارز بی‌خبر بوده!
و از همه مهم‌تر، رهبر از کل این حوادث خبر نداشته!

— لوترکینگ (@M_Lotherking) December 30, 2018

Mohammad Mozaffari, a political activist, posted a photo of the body of a diver killed in Operation Karbala Four with his hands bound, writing: “The image below belongs to one of the martyred divers in Operation Karbala Four who died tortured with bound hands so the enemy would be deceived! When the time comes, they will kill all of us so the enemy will be deceived.”

#محسن_رضایی: عملیات #کربلای_چهار برای فریب دشمن انجام شد.

تصویر زیر متعلق به یکی از شهدای غواص در عملیات کربلای چهار است که دست بسته شکنجه و جانباخت تا دشمن فریب بخورد!

وقتش که برسد همه ما را خواهند کشت تا دشمن فریب بخورد. pic.twitter.com/OoauVqLRB6

— محمد مظفری (@mohmd_mozafari) December 28, 2018

Hasem Aldin Ashena, an advisor to Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s president, also wrote on his Telegram channel addressing Mohsen Rezaei: “There is a world of difference between a deception operation and a leaked operation. Retrospective analyses do not solve a problem. We may forgive the wrong-doers, but never the arrogant.”

Pouria Alami, an Iranian writer and satirist, also tweeted addressing Mohsen Rezaei: “Why do you, Mr. Rezaei, from time to time, salt the wound of the loss of so many young people and martyrs and the grief of so many bereaved families?”

فرمانده‌ها شوخی شوخی وانمود می‌کردند نقشه دارند
سربازها جدی جدی وانمود می‌کردند اسیر می‌شوند گلوله می‌خورند می‌میرند
🙁
چرا آقای رضایی هر از چندی، نمک روی زخم فقدان این همه جوان و شهید این همه خانواده‌ی داغدار می‌ریزید? https://t.co/tvfyhYeQut

— Pouria Alami (@pouriaalami) December 28, 2018

Some users also tweeted videos of the farewell moments of the divers from Operation Karbala Four and scenes from the statements of martyr Hassan Bagheri.

Although Mohsen Rezaei this time has called Operation Karbala Four a “deception operation,” the published documents and interviews with the commanders of this war suggest that the issue of the operation being “leaked” appears to be closer to reality than Mohsen Rezaei’s claim.

Previously, Mirza Mohammad Saleqi, one of the commanders of that operation, stated that “a fundamental flaw threatened us, and that was the failure to maintain security principles and the enemy’s knowledge of the presence of nearly one hundred thousand Iranian forces in the rear of this region, who until the operation were engaged in training in various camps and barracks in the south. In addition to the common and general discussions of all corps, two characteristics of our corps’ situation distinguished it from the rest.”

Even Mohsen Rezaei himself stated in his memoirs that “up to one week before the operation and based on commanders’ assessment, the surprise factor was around 80 percent, and by the night of the operation it had reached around 50 percent.” Nevertheless, this operation was carried out.

Source: Voice of America