Operation Dawn 4

Operation Dawn 4

Part of: First Gulf War

date	October 20 , 1983 to November 21 , 1983
place	Penjwin , Kurdistan Autonomous Region
output	Iranian victory
consequences	Iran conquers the area around Penjwin

Parties to the conflict
Iraq	Iran Peshmerga
Commander
Saddam Hussein	Hussein Kharrazi

Operation Dawn 4 (Persian Valfajr 4 ; in English literature mostly translated as Operation Dawn 4 ) was an Iranian offensive in the Iraq-Iran war . By the end of the operation, Iran had captured a small amount of Iraqi territory.

battle

Units of the first Iraqi army corps had been waiting for an Iranian attack for two months. On October 20, 1983, the Iranian offensive began and, supported by Kurdish Peshmerga , they managed to capture 650 km ² of Iraqi territory. This included a number of Kurdish villages that belonged to Penjwin, which put a lot of pressure on the city. Saddam Hussein responded with a counter-attack, with the Iraqi Republican Guard and the use of poison gas . However, they failed due to the Iranian Kurdish defense, which then captured Penjwin.

Aftermath

The attack was very successful, despite the fact that Iran suffered heavy losses from the use of chemical weapons. In contrast to other operations and battles in the Iraq-Iran war, the environment and operational constraints became very important to the outcome of the battle.

In response to this victory, Saddam Hussein ordered multiple rocket attacks on six different cities.

Web links

• The Iran-Iraq War: Unattainable Objectives
• The Longest War, by Dilip Hiro, Routledge, Chapman, and Hall, 1991 (p. 102).