Second Battle of al - Faw The Second Battle of al - Faw ( also known as the Operation Ramadan Mubarak ( Blessed Ramadan ) ) , fought on April 17 , 1988 , was a major battle of the Iran – Iraq War . After their defeat at the First Battle of al - Faw two years earlier , the newly restructured Iraqi Army conducted a major operation to clear the Iranians out of the peninsula . The Iraqis concentrated well over 100 , 000 troops from the battle - hardened Republican Guard versus 15 , 000 Iranian Basij volunteers . The southern wing of the assault consisted of the Republican Guard ' s Madinah and Baghdad Divisions , which assaulted the Iranian lines and then allowed the Hammurabi Armoured Division to pass through and move along the southern coast of the peninsula and into al - Faw itself . Meanwhile the regular Iraqi Army ' s VII Corps attacked the northern end of the line with the 7th Infantry and 6th Armoured Divisions . While the 7th Infantry ' s attack became bogged down , the 6th Armoured broke through the Iranian lines , the 1st Mechanised Division pushed through , and later linked up with the Republican Guard divisions outside al - Faw . Thus the peninsula had been secured within thirty - five hours , with much of the Iranians ' equipment captured intact . Prelude . Following the Karbala campaigns of 1987 , but before the end of summer , the Iraqi Army started secretly practicing maneuvers in the desert behind Basra . The training maneuvers often involved multiple divisions and huge mock - ups of objectives Iraq intended to seize from Iran . The Iranian defeat during the Karbala Campaign of the previous year had dented the Iranian Army ' s manpower , supplies , and morale , and as a result increasing numbers of Iranians were turning against the war . This meant that the Iranian Army ' s mobilization attempt for a renewed offensive against Iraq in 1988 had failed . The Iranian military leadership had also decided at a major strategic conference that the Iranian Army had to undertake extensive retraining in order to defeat Iraq , which could in turn take up to 5 years . As a result the Iranian Army did not try to invade Iraq in 1988 . Meanwhile , with extensive foreign suppliers from the United States , the west , and the Soviet Union , the Iraqi army had extensively rearmed , becoming the 5th largest military in the world . Despite that , they still performed very unremarkably against the Iranians until 1988 . The al - Faw peninsula had been under Iranian control since 1986 when they launched a surprise attack on the peninsula as part of the larger Operation Dawn 8 . The taking of the peninsula by the Iranians was a strong blow to Iraq ' s prestige whilst also threatening Basra from the south - east . The retaking of the peninsula was seen by Saddam Hussein as a top priority , and Iraqi General Maher Abd al - Rashid promised to recover the peninsula , going so far as to offer his daughter Sahar to Saddam ' s son Qusay to show his certainty . Planning for the recovery of the peninsula began soon after it had been taken by the Iranians , and was largely done in secret by a small group of 6 , with Saddam Hussein himself being heavily involved in the planning process . For the second battle the Iraqis had concentrated over 100 , 000 soldiers , of whom approximately 60 % where from the Republican Guard , against some 15 , 000 Iranian Basij volunteers . The Iraqi command had expected the battle to take several weeks , but Iraq managed to seize the peninsula in a single day due to the collapse of the Iranian units present , with only minimal losses . This stunning success led the Iraqi command to decide to expand the original battle into a larger offensive campaign against Iran . The Battle . The attack on al - Faw was preceded by Iraqi diversionary attack s in northern Iraq , using the Iranian opposition group the Mujahedeen - e - Khalq , which supported Iraq . The attack was timed to coincide with the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan , and when the Iranian troops were rotating their troops . At 5 : 00 AM , Iraq launched a massive artillery and air barrage of Iranian front lines . With the help of American satellite imagery , key areas such as supply lines , command posts , and ammunition depots , were hit by a storm of mustard gas and sarin nerve gas , as well as by conventional explosives . Using helicopters , the Iraqis 7th Corps under the command of General Maher Rashid moved down the Shatt - al - Arab waterway and blocked the rear of the Iranians on the peninsula . The advanced Republican Guard units launched their attack , moving down the peninsula 21 miles south of Umm Qasr . The attacks were preceded with numerous chemical weapons bombardments , killing and / or sickening close to the majority of the unprepared Iranian troops on the peninsula . The Third Corps drove down the Faw peninsula , while the Iraqi Special Forces moved through the marshy wetlands . At the same time , other Iraqi forces launched amphibious attack s onto the peninsula in the direction of Umm Qasr . They broke through Iran ' s complex water and barbed wire defensive barriers rapidly . Iraq took some casualties clearing the minefields on the peninsula , but captured the town of Faw 35 hours into the attack . The Iranians were completely taken by surprise during the battle , and had failed to regroup to counterattack . They were outnumbered 6 : 1 in infantry and had virtually no armor . Many , if not most , were killed or sickened by Iraqi mass chemical weapons bombardments . They fought stubbornly at first , but then began to retreat . Iraqi fighter jets bombed two of the three pontoon bridges crossing the Shatt - al - Arab , causing chaos among the Iranians . Less than two days into the attack , the Iranians had been driven from the Faw peninsula . The Iranians managed to halt the Iraqi drive when they tried to enter Iran ' s Khuzestan province . Aftermath . Within 35 hours of the battle , Iraq ' s flag flew above the town of Faw . Within 48 hours , all of the Iranian forces had been killed or cleared from the al - Faw Peninsula , most retreating via a single pontoon bridge remaining . [ 43 ] The day was celebrated in Iraq as Faw Liberation Day throughout Saddam ' s rule . The Iraqis had planned the offensive well . Prior to the attack the Iraqi soldiers gave themselves poison gas antidotes to shield themselves from the effect of the saturation of gas . The heavy and well executed use of chemical weapons was the decisive factor in the Iraqi victory . [ 101 ] Iraqi losses were a little more than 1 , 000 . [ 39 ] The Iranians eventually managed to halt the Iraqi drive as they pushed towards Khuzestan . [ 12 ] The Iraqi performance , while carried out well , was not as impressive however in light of the fact that they had outnumbered an almost entirely infantry army almost 6 : 1 and had failed to defeat them for the previous 8 years . Despite that , the Iraqis were finally managing to do that . The attack coincided the same day as the US ( unofficially allied with Iraq at that time ) launched Operation Praying Mantis on Iran , destroying their navy . The double blows had a severe effect on Iran . To the shock of the Iranians , rather than breaking off the offensive , the Iraqis kept up their drive , and a new force attacked the Iranian positions around Basra . [ 20 ] Following this , the Iraqis launched a sustained drive to clear the Iranians out of all of southern Iraq . [ 26 ] : 264 One of the most successful Iraqi tactics was the " one - two punch " attack using chemical weapons . Using artillery , they would saturate the Iranian front line with rapidly dispersing cyanide and nerve gas , while longer - lasting mustard gas was launched via fighter - bombers and rockets against the Iranian rear , creating a " chemical wall " that blocked reinforcement . This battle was the beginning of the end of the Iran - Iraq War . By the end of the war , while Iraq demonstrated that it could not successfully invade Iran once again , they had managed to cause major defeats among the Iranian forces inside of Iraq . The Iranian leadership realized that the war had become unwinnable for them , and that they had suffered many economic and material losses , and accepted the ceasefire . Bibliography . http : / / csis . org / files / media / csis / pubs / 9005lessonsiraniraqii - chap10 . pdf http : / / books . google . com / books ? id = dUHhTPdJ6yIC & printsec = frontcover & source = gbs _ atb # v = onepage & q & f = false