At 8:30 am, Thursday, the regime's high command was still repeating its orders to the Air Corps: "Due to the large number of wounded, immediately dispatch helicopters to the positions of the 27th division." The next urgent order to the Air Force and Air Corps was to step up the bombardment of the regions "after Kerend" (toward Islam- abad). At 10:42 am, Colonel Ardestani, deputy commander of the operation, announced that he had received orders "for a bomb blitz" and told the pilots that they must work constantly to carry out the order.
By 2 pm, the Air Corps had reported 100 flights, but was persistently directed to send more helicopter gun ships and more helicopters to carry the wounded.
The eighth major confrontation was an attack launched by an NLA brigade on columns of newly arrived enemy forces. The battle raged from Thursday morning until 1 pm along the road from Malavi Junction to the Hassanabad heights (toward Kermanshah). 1,200 of Khomeini's forces were killed or wounded.
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