Siege of Basra
| Siege of Basra Operation Karbala-5 The Great Harvest | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Iran–Iraq War | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
| Iraq | Iran | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
|
Saddam Hussein Gen. al-Rashid Lt. Gen. Dhia ul-Din Jamal Maj. Gen. Khalil al-Dhouri Brig. Gen. Abdul-Wahid Shannan ar-Ribat Brig. Gen. Riyadh Taha Brig. Gen. Hassan Yusuf Brig. Gen. Ibrahim Ismail Brig. Gen. Hamid Salman |
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani Mohsen Rezaee Hossein Kharrazi † Col. Ali Sayyad Shirazi Esmail Daghayeghi † Saeed Jalili (WIA) | ||||||||
| Units involved | |||||||||
|
3rd Corps
7th Corps National Defense Battalions |
Basij and Revolutionary Guards (70%): | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| 300,000 | 150,000–200,000 | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
|
10,000–20,000 killed 150 tanks and 10 aircraft lost |
40,000–65,000 killed 218 armored vehicles 21 boats | ||||||||
| ≈2 million civilians displaced | |||||||||
The siege of Basra, code-named Operation Karbala-5 (Persian: عملیات کربلای ۵) or The Great Harvest (Arabic: الحصاد الاكبر), was an offensive operation carried out by Iran in an effort to capture the Iraqi port city of Basra in early 1987. This battle, known for its extensive casualties and ferocious conditions, was the biggest battle of the war and proved to be the last major Iranian offensive. The Iranians failed to reach their objective.