Over 30 years ago, Iranian air force performed ab operation that upuntil today is seen as the most daring military operation in history.

At the height of Iraq invasion of Iran, Iraqi had the upper hand in the sky despite the fact that Iranian air force had better equipments and planes, the lack of spare parts and strong Iraqi air defense using Soviet made anti aircraft missiles and artillery as well as Italian and British systems were making it hard for Iran to push Iraq out of the large areas they had captured during the first 3 months of the invasion.

In a daring suggestion, the air force decided to attack the Iraqi main air force located at the border of the country with Syria.

The 2800km flight involving almost entire Iranian air force, including 2 4 tankers started in Hamedan airfield, with refilling of the planes over Azerbaijan, then fly over Iraq at low altitude refule once again inside Iraq and attack the Iraqi field Al-Valeed code named H-3, destroying 20 MIG planes and damaging 10 more plus massive damages to the missiles and air defense storage facilities that were not protected at all since Iraq didn't imagine to have them targeted.

After the operation, Saddam who was infuriated by the failure of his military to detect, intercept and destroy any of the planes involved in the operation, ordered the execution of head of the team and 5 others and imprisoned 20 others staff of the air fileld.

IRI claims that they destroyed 48 Mig-21s and damaging 20 more, but there haa never been any verified report to back those claims.

The attack were the turning point for Iraqi military who later turned to France to purchase Mirage F1 planes as well as Italian attack helicopters and French and British air to sea and air to surface missiles.

The operation involved 4 refueling operations, 2 of them over Iraqi air.

#Iran #Iraq #Saddam #Military IraqIranWar #Airforce #History #Politics