"The one invaluable benefit we have is the right of passage through Iraqi territory. But as far as military matters are concerned, we are totally independent. For example, we confis cated over $100 million worth of weaponry from the Khomeini regime in the last offensive, and in some cases we have bought the special weapons we needed. Of course, in order to prevent any practical problem, we Putting Khomeini on the defensive coordinate with them whenever we wish to cross the border. "
I ask Commander Zakeri about the impact of the NLA's activities on the
Iran-Iraq war. I get the impression from the way he nods his head that he
likes this question. We leave the sand models for a large wall map depicting
the lengthy Iran-Iraq border His eyes never straying from the map, the commander
explains:
"For several years, ,since summer1982, the alignment of forces at the fronts was fixed. Since the Khomeini regime viewed the other side as on the defensive, it had taken the initiative, concentrating its forces at desirable locations and evacuating them as it wished. It was free to choose the time and place of its offensives. Thus, despite a sharp decline in manpower over the past several years, this factor helped the regime to concentrate forces along the southern front and launch major attacks on Basrah or other targets in the south. This was the situation from winter `84 until last year
"When the NLA entered the scene and carried out extensive attacks on Khomeini's forces all along the Irn-Iraq border, the situation changed. The Khomeini regime cannot feel safe anyplace, because it may be allacked by the NLA at that very location. This has led to a situation where the regime's forces are pinned down along the border and have lost their mobility. In the past, the regime allocated maybe only 20% of its forces to defense and the rest were on the offensive. But today it has to allocate a, larger percentage to defense.
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