Operation Before Dawn ends without a breakthrough

Iran held its first election for the Assembly of Experts responsible for leadership selection and oversight. This was a different institution from the assembly that drafted the 1979 Constitution.

Resolution 37/98 D requested investigations of possible Geneva Protocol violations, expert and laboratory lists, and procedures for prompt evidence collection. Iran later invoked this authority.

Khomeini directed judicial and executive officials to respect legal safeguards against arbitrary arrest, confiscation and intrusion. The wartime decree expressed rules for state conduct; it did not...

Iran reported Iraqi long-range missiles hitting populated areas of Dezful. The attack underscored the continuing vulnerability of Khuzestan’s cities after major Iranian battlefield gains.

Iranian forces opened an offensive in the southern sector. The operation sought to break Iraqi defenses but failed, demonstrating that Iran’s post-1982 cross-border offensives faced formidable...

Iran’s ambassador later identified 2 March as the date of an Iraqi attack on offshore oil wells. The damaged Nowruz facilities became a major pollution and repair crisis.

Iran’s delegation said it would continue the war despite Indira Gandhi’s appeal for peace. Competing Iranian and Iraqi demands complicated the Non-Aligned summit.

Iran demanded that Iraq apologize for bombing its oil wells. Both countries had agreed to attend pollution talks but had not accepted a ceasefire for repairs.

Iran began a central-front offensive near Amara. It was one of several 1983 operations that attempted to penetrate Iraqi territory but made no decisive change to the front, adding to the war’s...

The April offensive ended without a decisive breakthrough. Repeated Iranian ground assaults and Iraq’s defensive system produced a prolonged war of attrition, with neither side able to convert...