The Iranian Air Force 1979-1982
[1]
Their Last Mission:
The destruction of the Iranian Air Force 1979-1981
Seth J. Frantzman
March 25th, 2005
In the spring of 1979 Iran had one of the most highly trained air-forces in the world, flying some of the latest American made Jet aircraft. Three years later, after the turmoil of revolution and the outbreak of war with Iraq this glorious arm had been shattered, its more then 445 combat aircraft reduced to less then 90. The number of personnel working in the air force had declined from 100,000 to less then half that number. The majority of these losses and the collapse of the Iranian air force was however not merely a result of the conflict with Iraq, rather the decline in Iran’s air force can be seen as a magnified symbol of the twin shocks of revolution and total war. Sources on the Iran-Iraq war are by and large dated, having been written from the period 1986-1991. The coming of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the ensuing conflict with the United States changed the focus of much of the research on the conflict and today it has receded from memory. Yet through the lens of the Iranian Air Force and its performance in the opening days of the war we can see many of the themes of the war brought to the surface, and hopefully shed new light on the many perspectives surrounding the Iran-Iraq war.
The Iranian Air Force before September 22, 1980
The Shah’s relationship with the Iranian Air Force was not untypical of relationships between various Middle Eastern leaders and their air forces. Traditionally the Air arm has been a coveted source of pride for the nations of the Middle East, a place from which leaders of nations have materialized. This is the case in Egypt and Syria, and King Hussein was an avid pilot himself. Having come to power in 1941 Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlevi worked to make his air force not only modern but also larger and more advanced then any of his neighbors in the Gulf region[2]. As a staunch ally of America Iran’s air force was equipped with the latest F-4 and F-14 aircraft, and the first batch of 160 F-16s were to be delivered in 1980[3].
A rare photo of a female member of the Shah’s Air Force courtesy iiaf.net
The Air Force became politicized along with the rest of Iran in the late 1970s. After the Shah departed for exile on the January 16th, 1979 the soldiers in the Air Force became increasingly involved in politics. On the 3rd of February many technicians began to be involved in street demonstrations and the daily factional fighting in Tehran. At the Doshan-Tapeh air base outside Tehran personnel “refused to arm, or service, combat aircraft or helicopters that might be used against anti-Shahist demonstrations.”[4] During the street fighting of the 9th through 11th of February some ‘units’ of the Air Force engaged in armed clashes with the pro-Shahist units of the Imperial Guard and other loyal army units. It appears as if these Air Force personnel were mainly enlisted men, maintenance people, and lower ranks, but the fact that the Air Force, usually considered so loyal, should have been involved at all is proof to the havoc that the revolution had wrought on the country.
The 11th of February marked the end of the military involvement in the chaos that had consumed Iran since the Shah’s departure. The resignation of Prime Minister Bakhtiar and his replacement by Khomeini supporter Mehdi Bazarghan was the first in a series of events that led to the installation of the Islamic revolution in Iran. This turmoil affected the army because from the period of January 17th Khomeini had been calling on soldiers to desert their units and many of the more radical anti-shah elements were now campaigning to have a ‘People’s Army’. [5] These factors contributed to a massive decline in the number of people employed by the Air Force, its strength falling from 100,000 on the first of the year to around 65,000.
The decline in manpower can be inferred to have affected the lower ranks more, but the officers were also affected, not as much by desertion but rather by the purges of the new Islamic regime. These purges began in February and would last through the end of 1979. In all about 85 senior officers were shot, and most of the highest ranks forced to retire. Later in the year a wider purge took place which netted a total of 12000 members of the regular army. It can be estimated that as many as 2000 Air Force personnel were removed, and forcibly retired. In addition Air Force commander General Amir Hossein Rabbiie was executed on April 9th, 1979 and General Nader Jahanbani was shot on March 12th. In all the Air Force is estimated to have lost half of its pilots and 15-20% of its officers, NCOs and technicians in this period.[6] At the same time as the officer corps was being purged the Air Force suffered the turmoil of having 3 commanders in a six month period.[7] The creation of a ‘Revolutionary Guards Corps’ on 16 June 1979 inaugurated a new era in Iranian military thinking whereby the regular army, considered hostile to the regime or at least not supportive, was to be shunted aside in favor of more loyal units. This, like the rest of the turmoil of 1979 had the affect of starving the Air Force of recruits loyal to the regime and of depriving it of the financial and technological support a modern air force needs to survive.
Throughout the Spring and summer Iranian Air Force personnel had continued to be killed by the regime, this included 4 who were killed in January 26th and three more on June 7th. One can assume that even if the executions were results of actual plots, these killings had an adverse affect on the opinion of the Air Force for the government. The third phase of the purge of the air force began following the ‘Nojeh’ coup attempt of July 20, 1980. In all 50 Air Force personnel, including 2 generals, a colonel and four majors were executed for involvement. The details of the coup attempt involved pro-shah forces from the top echelons of many of the military branches and a half baked plan to bomb Khomeini’s residence and raise an army of Baluchi troops to take Tehran.[8]
If one assumes that the Air Force had a pilot to plane ratio of 2 to1, then one can infer that by the end of 1979 their would still have been enough pilots left in the Air Force to fly many of the planes necessary. However the revolution had wreaked havoc not only on the Air Force personnel but also on the hardware available to it. America had been Iran’s major supplier of military hardware since the outbreak of the Cold War. The arrival of an Islamic regime uniquely hostile to American interests meant not only the canceling of the F-16 deal but also the end of any shipments of spare parts or equipment destined for the Iranian Air Force[9]. The most advanced plane in Iran’s arsenal, the F-14, was deprived of its avionics with the departure of American military advisors. The F-4 and F-5 fleets, which made up the bulk of Iran’s combat aircraft, now were deprived of spare parts. In an organization now numbering 60,000 people, with a close knit group of officers these deprivations as well as the killing of their comrades put the Iranian pilots into a disturbing situation, not unlike the one faced by Russia’s army under Stalin’s purges.
Iranian Air Force Bases 1980
Courtesy iiaf.net
The Outbreak of War, September 22nd, 1980-1982
On September 21st, the day before the Iraqi invasion, the Iranian Air force had 447 combat aircraft stationed at 10 air bases throughout the country.[10] There were 79 modern F-14s and 209 F-4s and 167 F-5s.[11] In theory Iran’s Air Force was more then a match for the Iraqi one. On paper Iraq only possessed 332 combat aircraft, consisting mainly of Mig 17s, 21s and 23s.[12] Since the Iranian pilots had adhered to NATO requirements for flying time(training time in the aircraft) whereas at the outbreak of war the Iraqi pilots had “limited hours flying time” it would have been surprising if the Iranian Air Force had not proved dramatically superior.[13] It is for this reason that Saddam Hussien opted for an Israeli style air raid on Iranian Air fields, to be followed up by an armored blitzkrieg to capture the province of Khuzestan in south west Iran.
The Iraqi plan to catch Iran’s Air Force on the ground succeeded, in the sense that Iran appeared to be completely surprised and its Air Force made few attempts to intercept the attack. The Iraqi air assault on September 22nd hit six Iranian Air bases, and 4 Iranian Army bases.[14] However, having learned from the Six Day War, Iran had established concrete bunkers where most of its combat air craft were stored, thus the Iraqis succeed mainly in cratering a few Iranian runways, without causing any significant damage to Iran’s Air Force.
The Iranian Air Force, despite low moral and declining maintenance standards, responded quickly, bombing a series of Iraqi installations on September 23rd. In much the same way as the Nazi invasion of Russia caused the Russian people to rally around a regime that under normal circumstances would be hated, the Iranian Air Force likewise rallied around its nation, the Persian, Shia nation defending itself from the Arab onslaught. By the night of the 23rd more then 140 Iranian Aircraft had completed sorties into Iraqi airspace. The Iraqis, anticipating such a counterstroke had meanwhile evacuated most of their aircraft to other Arab states, such as Saudi Arabia.[15] The Iranian counter attack is evidence that despite the shake ups in the command structure the pre-revolution plans for countering an Iraqi attack had been left intact and the pilots were able to execute these plans efficiently. The best evidence for this is that although the Iranian air force was able to maintain an “aerial siege” of Iraq in the first weeks of the war, these capabilities quickly trailed off as the number of sorties and targets of mission declined dramatically.
The reasons for the precipice like drop off in the capabilities of the Iranian Air Force had little to do with the Iraqi ability to combat the Iranians and more to do with the nature of the Iranian Air Force’s hardware, which consisted of American made items that were no longer available. The lack of plans for an extended war with Iraq can also be blamed and it here that we see the affects of the revolutionary regimes purges taking their greatest affect. The destruction of the higher echelons of the air force left a planning vacuum, that could not be filled, and their was little in the was of training facilities left to fill it. The pilots who reacted in September 23rd did so out of loyalty to their nation and with practiced plans, as time progressed no more concrete ideas would be forthcoming.
Calculating Iranian losses in the opening stage of the war is relatively easy, since a number of online databases have been maintained with accurate statistics on the subject.
By the end of 1980 the Iranian air force had lost 34 airplanes in air to air combat. By contrast in 1981 the Iranian Air Force lost only 13 planes in air to air combat, and in 1982 only 9 were lost. The decline in numbers is not actually indicative of Iranian ability to out-fly the Iraqis, rather it is indicative of the far fewer sorties being flown by Iran.
The best way to understand this is to take the case of Iran’s 79 F-14s based in Shiraz and Isfahan. In the first three years of the war Iran is estimated to have only lost 3 of these planes. Yet by February 11, 1985 when the entire F-14 squadron did a flyover of Tehran(to prove that Iran still had an Air Force) it consisted of only 25 planes.[16] The fate of these planes is connected with a policy that Iran enacted soon after the war began, the directive of ‘vulturisation’ of the planes with mechanical problems to help keep the best planes flying. Iran, cut off from her U.S sources, was reduced to “scavenging the world’s arms bazaars for spares”.[17]
Getting at the numbers of Iranian aircraft that were air worthy or flying at any given time is tough not only because the Iranian government broadcasted propaganda but also due a simple lack of information. The worst problem plaguing the aircraft was not the Iraqis but rather the lack of spare parts for the aircraft. The ‘vulturisation’ process reduced the Iranian air force to about 100 planes by the end of 1981.[18] Losses of planes due to combat can be said to have roughly equaled those due to ‘vulturisation’ if we accept the figure of 90 Iranian planes being lost by the end of October 1980.[19] It is estimated that by the spring of 1981 the Air Force had reached as low of perhaps 25 airworthy aircraft.[20] This number would increase to about 50 as the years passed, and as the Iranian government obtained spare parts from clandestine American and Israeli sources and other countries including South Korea and Libya.[21] The virtual grounding of the Iranian Air Force in late 1980 and early 1981 due to technical problems helps to explain a second dimension of the conflict waging within Iran’s armed forces. With the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war many Iranian veterans had volunteered their services and many of those who had deserted their units in the spring returned, swept up in a mood of national preservation to expel the Arab invader. The President of Iran, Bani-Sadr persuaded Khomeini to release many of the imprisoned Air Force personnel, mostly urgently needed pilots and technicians. Former senior officers were even recalled as ‘consultants’.[22] At this time Iranians who had even left the country began to return hoping to help their country during the ensuing conflict. The amnesty for certain necessary pilots and the return of other pilots helped the Iranian Air Force in the opening days of the war, and was instrumental in slowing the Iraqi advance and spreading fear in Baghdad itself.
The increased efficacy of the Air Force can be seen in some of the more daring raids it engaged in during the last months of 1980 and the spring of 1981. On the 30 September, 1980 Iran bombed, but failed to destroy the Iraqi nuclear reactor(Osirak, later destroyed by Israel). On April 4, 1981 Iran embarked on an 810 kilometer raid deep into Iraq, bombing a series of Iraqi Air fields.[23] In 1980 alone 70 Iraqi planes were defeated in Air to Air combat. The number of enemy aircraft destroyed in the same manner in 1981 was reduced to 24, still a significant number for an Air Force that was only able to put a few dozen planes in the air at any one time.
The return of the exiled and imprisoned pilots gave the Iranian Air Force a burst of man power and fresh crews, but it also led to heightened by suspicions by the Islamic authorities. The fears of fresh purges were realized over the years as 4 Colonels and 4 Majors who had returned were later imprisoned and shot by the government in renewed witch hunts of those accused of disloyalty.[24] The irony of this is that the government was not altogether false in its feeling that the Air Force was more loyal to the nation then it was to the new regime.
The decline in the air capabilities of the Air Force also corresponds to a renewed crack down and a renewed purge of the Air Force in the spring and summer of 1981. A year previously Air Force officers had involved themselves in the Nojeh coup, against Khomeini and president Bani-Sadr, now the Air Force was implicated in aiding Bani-Sadr as he fled the country in August, 1981. The accusation was justified, since the pilot who flew Bani-Sadr into exile was one of the men he had helped obtain the release of to fight in the war. The Air Force was grounded following the incident and 200 pilots and their crews were imprisoned. The Islamic regime now realized the Air Force had to be brought totally under its thumb and a tribunal of ‘Mullahs’ was put in place to authorize every flight. The Islamic authorities had apparently learned this idea from the Soviets who likewise kept political officers within the ranks to sniff out disloyalty. When pilots were allowed to fly they were given “the minimum of fuel required to for the mission. Apart from being demoralized, Iranian pilots lacked sufficient flying time and experience owing to being grounded so often and for so long”.[25] For this reason, of the more then 81 Iranian pilots killed in the Iran-Iraq war, not one was brought down in the summer of 1981. To be an Iranian Air Force officer in that time meant one was more at risk of imprisonment or execution on the ground from the Islamic government then they were in the air from Iraqi missiles and anti-aircraft fire. Likewise during the period, not one Iraqi plane was destroyed in Air to Air combat between May 16th and September 1st. The Iranian Air Force basically ceased to function.
Iran’s premier aircraft, the F-14 had disappeared from the skies during this time. The Mullahs did everything they could, short of disbanding the Air Force, to ensure that it fell into line and could no longer participate into anti-Khomeini acts. Nevertheless the increased purges, and heightened state of government surveillance helped make the pilots decisions for them, by 1983 they began to defect, and at least one even flew to Iraq.[26]
General Hazin(right), who had been a captain in 1980 survived the purges and the war. In the background is an F-14, Iran’s premier aircraft, which suffered due to lack of spare parts. Courtesy iiaf.net.
In the book Every Man a Tiger American Air Force General Chuck Horner makes a series of observations regarding the Iranian Air Force. “Among every nation in the world you’ll find a few ‘aces’-young men, and now women, capable of winning aerial engagements time after time…The Iranian pilots, while eager obviously suffered as a result of the fundamentalist revolution.”[27] In the end, as the war progressed Iran did retain some pilots who, despite the tremors of the revolution and war, remained loyal to the regime and continued to fly into the late 1980s. Some of these pilots had obviously been vetted by the ‘mullahs’ following the 1981 purges and they had found them sufficiently ‘Islamic’. Edgar O’Ballance in his study of the war explains that after 1982 the Air Force was “distrusted, suspected and grounded most of the time; and there were frequent purges of pilots, flying crew and technical staff.”[28] On 28th of May 1983 five more officers were arrested and accused of plotting a coup. Former Iranian Air Force personnel now living in exile confirm that many ‘war heroes’ stayed on in Iran, some climbing to be generals of the Air Force during the war, and retiring afterward. In some of the photographs of these men it is clear by their new found beard growth that they are attempting to fit in or at least prove their loyalty to the regime.
General Abbas Babaie was religious before the revolution, pilots such as these give an example of the way in which the Iranian Air Force was a microcosm of the society as a whole. Picture courtesy iiaf.net.
The outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war was most likely looked upon as a good testing ground for new Soviet equipment and by 1982 the Soviets had returned as technicians in Iraq, after withdrawing personnel at the outbreak of war. The Americans, although hostile to the Iranian regime, were also interested in seeing how their F-4 and specifically F-14s would hold up against Soviet SAM systems and the Mig fighters. The first of December 1981 brought the first downing of a French made Mirage and December 1982 saw the first downing of a Mig-25. During the course of the war more then 100 Iraqi fighters would be brought down in Air to Air combat. Certainly in the case of the Americans since the Iranian pilots had mostly been trained at Miramar, in America, it could be concluded that the American weapon system was superior. In this case the Americans might have been more impressed with the Iranian victory over the Iraqis then the Israel aerial victory over Syria in the same period, since the Iraqi’s were believed to be better trained. The defeat of French Mirage’s may have also been studied by the British before they embarked on their overseas adventure to recover the Falklands from Argentina in 1982. Argentina had been supplied with similar French airplanes.
The superpowers were also certainly monitoring the anti-aircraft systems that each had supplied to the hostile nations. In his Military Analysis of the Iran-Iraq war Efraim Karsh writes “Both Iraq and Iran began the war with impressive air defense systems…despite the large inventories, the air defense systems have been most disappointing in action…Iraq and Iran failed totally to integrate their air defense elements into an overall system.”[29] In the case of Iraq it is not clear why this was the case, but in the case of Iran all these disappointments rest squarely on the shoulders of the revolutionary regime and its draconian policies against the Air Force.
Why the Iranian Air Force?
The Iran Iraq war was a massive war, and can be analyzed from more then a dozen viewpoints.[30] The Iranian air force however presents a smaller controlled body that can be viewed not necessarily as symbolic of the country but symbolic of many of the clashes between the regime, the nation and the conflict waging around it. The Iranian air force, its performance and the purging of it, including the total sapping of its strength, not from combat losses, but from mechanical and other losses, is a mirror of the nation as a whole, destroyed not only from without but also in many ways rotting from within, at war with itself almost as much as it was with the Arab enemy.
Notes on Sources
The Sources used as a bases of this study are primarily books written in the period 1986-1992 and websites where recent data has been compiled regarding pilots killed in the war and aircraft downed during the conflict. The sources written as the war was going must be judged by the fact that they relied in many cases on news print accounts and radio broadcasts, some of which may have been fabricated or issued for propaganda purposes. The website iiaf.net contains a plethora of data and first hand accounts by people who were employed by the Iranian Air Force before and in some cases during the war. However since the website is run by Iranian exiles not sympathetic to the current regime, although deeply sympathetic to their country, it is politically motivated and must be judged accordingly. The website acig.org is maintained by military enthusiasts and makes a point of vetting its sources and coding its data accordingly, and thus it is more reliable, although mostly useful for the military enthusiast.
Appendix I
Major operations by Iranian Air Force 1980-1982(not a complete list)[31]
September 23, 1980 140 Iranian F-4D/E Phantoms, F-5E/Fs and F-14s aerial ‘onslaught’ against Iraq.
September 30th, 1980 Iran bombs Iraqi nuclear reactor
October 7th Iranian aircraft bomb Iraqi oil installations at Kirkuk and Sulaimaniyeh
April 4, 1981 F-4s strike H-3 oil and military complex
February 1982 Iranian Aircraft bomb Kirkuk
Appendix II
Iranian Air Force Personnel executed by the government since 1979[32]
1-General Amir Hossein Rabiie- ( Pilot) April 9, 1979 Tehran2-General Nader Jahanbani - ( Pilot ) March 12, 1979 Tehran3-General Hashem Berenjian - ( Pilot ) April 14,1979 Tehran4- Colonel Siavash Bayani ( Killed after returning back to Iran)5- Colonel Ali Gilani (Pilot) ( Killed after returning back to Iran)6- Colonel Bahram Ikani (Pilot) ( Killed after returning back to Iran)7- Colonel Satar Satari ( Killed after returning back to Iran)8- Colonel Masoud Babaii ( Pilot) ( Killed in Iran) 9-Colonel Ahmad Moradi Talebi (August 10, 1987 Geneva- Switzerland ) 10-Major Ghodrat Torkaman - ( Pilot ) Dec. 21, 1981 Tehran 11- Major Mir Heydar Mokhayer ( Jan. 26, 1980 Tabriz )12- Major Behrooz Behroozi (Pilot) ( Killed after returning back to Iran)13- Major Bahman Partovi (Pilot) ( Killed after returning back to Iran)14- Major Mohammad Hossein Azizian ( Killed after returning back to Iran)15- Major Aliakbar Mohammadi ( Pilot ) Jan-16-1987 Hamburg- Germany 16- Capt. Hamid Nemati (Pilot) ( He was kidnapped in Greece and smuggled to Iran)17- Lt. Hatam Doakhan (Pilot)( Was killed in Kordestan) 18- Lt. Allahverdi Hajesfandiyari ( Jan. 26, 1980 Tabriz )19- Homafar ( Later Col. ) ...? Pedram killed in 2001 ( Killed after returning back to Iran) 20- Sgt. Mehdi Babaei Farshbaf ( Jan. 26, 1980 Tabriz )21- Sgt. Sirous Pazireh ( Jan. 26, 1980 Tabriz )22- Sgt. Bahman Davoudi ( Jun. 7, 1980 Tabriz )23- Sgt. Mansour Farzam ( Jun. 7, 1980 Tabriz )24- Sgt. Kazem Lotfi ( Jun. 7, 1980 Tabriz )25- Sgt. ......... Javan Mardi ( Feb. 6, 1980 Bushehr )26- Sgt. Siawash Nourouzi ( May 16, 1980 Hamedan )Killed in Nojeh uprising: 27- General Saeed Mehdioun (Pilot) August 15, 1980 Tehran28 - General Ayat Mohagheghi (Pilot) July 20, 1980 Tehran29 - Colonel Daryoush Jalali (Pilot) July 31, 1980 Tehran 30 - Major Faroukhzad Jahangiri (Pilot) July 20, 1980 Tehran31- Major Iraj Soltani Jay (Pilot) August 7, 1980 Tehran 32- Major Kavous Alizadeh August 7, 1980 Tehran 33- Major Omid Ali Boveiri (Pilot) July 24, 1980 Tehran 34 - Captain Mohammad Malek (Pilot) July 20, 1980 Tehran35 - Captain Bijan Iran Nejad Sabet July 20, 1980 Tehran36 - Captain Karim Afrouz (Pilot) July 24, 1980 Tehran 37- Captain Mohammad Behrooz Fard (Pilot) July 31, 1980 Tehran38 - Captain Hormoz Zamanpour August 15, 1980 Tehran39 - Captain Ali Asgar Soleymani (Pilot) July 24, 1980 Tehran 40 - Captain Nasser Zandi (Pilot) July 24, 1980 Tehran41- Captain Ali Shafigh Sept. 16, 1980 Tehran42- Lt. Nejat Yahya (Pilot) July 31, 1980 Tehran43 - Lt. Mohammad Ali Saghafi (Pilot) August 7, 1980 Tehran44 - Lt. Hossein Shokri (Pilot) August 7, 1980 Tehran 45 - Lt. Jafar Rastgoo August 7, 1980 Tehran 46 - Lt. Nasser Rokni (Pilot) August 7, 1980 Tehran 47- Lt. Jalal Asgari August 7, 1980 Tehran 48 - Lt. Ayoub Habibi July 24, 1980 Tehran 49- Lt. Mohammad Mehdi Azimi Far (Pilot) July 24, 1980 Tehran50 - Lt. Mohammad Ali Farzam July 31, 1980 Tehran 51- Ho22mafar Yousef Pour Rezaee July 20, 1980 Tehran52 - Homafar Jafar Mazaheri Kashani July 24, 1980 Tehran 53 - Sgt. Hossein Karimpourtari July 31, 1980 Tehran54 - Sgt. Mojtaba Moradi July 31, 1980 Tehran55 - Sgt. Siawash Nouroozi July 31, 1980 Tehran56 - Sgt. Ahmad Mohamadi July 31, 1980 Tehran57 - Sgt. Bakhsh Ali Karimian
( and 22 other enlisted personnel )
Appendix III
Iranian Combat Aircraft downed by Iraqi’s 1980-1982[33]
Date Aircraft
23Sep80
F-5E
23Sep80
F-5E
23Sep80
Il-76MD
25Sep80
F-4
26Sep80
F-5E
30Sep80
F-5E
12Oct80
F-5E
12Oct80
AB.214C
12Oct80
AB.214C
15Oct80
F-4E
15Oct80
F-4E
15Oct80
F-4E
15Oct80
F-4E
16Oct80
F-4D
19Oct80
F-4E
20Oct80
F-5E
20Oct80
F-5E
23Oct80
F-5E
23Oct80
F-5E
24Oct80
F-14A
1Nov80
F-5E
14Nov80
F-5E
22Nov80
F-4D
26Nov80
F-5E
26Nov80
F-5E
28Nov80
F-4E
16Oct80
F-4E
16Dec80
MiG-21
16Dec80
F-5E
16Dec80
flew himself into ground
9Jan81
F-4E
12Jan81
AH-1J
18Jan81
F-4E
4Feb81
F-4E
Apr81
MiG-21R
3May81
Gulfstream III
??May81
F-4E
??May81
F-4E
??May81
F-5E
??May81
F-5E
??May81
AH-1J
7May81
F-4E
8May81
F-5E
1Apr82
F-5E
??Oct82
AH-1J
??Oct82
F-4E
27Jan82
RF-4E
26Feb82
F-5E
16Jul82
F-4E
??Oct82
AH-1J
??Dec82
F-5E
Appendix IV
Iranian Pilots Killed in Action 1980-1982[34]
Abbaszadeh Khosrow Abdolkarimi ( F-4 ) Bandar Abbas Abolhassan Aboulhassani ( F-5 ) over Ducan Dam Aboutalebi ( F-4 ) Bushehr Hassan Afshin Azar ( F-5 ) Mossel Nosratolah Aghaee ( C-130 ) Kermanshah 7 Jan. 1981 Abbas .Akbari ( F-4 ) Iraq Khosrow Akhbari ( F-4 ) Davood Akradi ( F-4 ) Karkook 30 Oct.1981 Ali AliAkbaree ( F-4 ) Bushehr 29 Sept. 1980 Masoud Amiri ( F-4 )Oct 1980 Asdolah AssadZadeh ( F-5 ) Over Faw Asadolah Barbari ( F-5 ) over Rawanduz Sept 1980 Mohammad Balazadeh ( F-5 ) Bazargan ( F-5 ) Mohammad Hossein Darabee ( F-5 ) 17 Mar. 1981 Ebrahim Delhamed ( F-5 ) 70 NM from Mosul Masihollah Din Mohammadi ( F-4 ) Abbas Dooran ( F-4 ) Baghdad 22 Jul. 1982 Ali Eqhbali ( F-5 ) over Aqrah Mohammad Eshghipoor ( F-4 ) Abbas Eslami Nia ( F-4 ) Baghdad 1980 Farahani ( F-4 ) Ghasre Shirin Abbas Fazilat ( F-5 ) over Rawanduz Hassan Ghahestani ( F-4 ) Reza Gharabaghi ( F-4 ) Gholam Gholamrezaee ( F-5 ) Karkheh1980 Khalil Ghobadi ( Helicopter ) Iraq Mansour Ghoreyshi ( F-4 ) Mahshahr 7 Feb. 1981 Bijan Haji ( F-4 ) Over Iraq 10 Oct. 1980 Bijan Harooni ( F-5 ) Dezful Hassani ( F-4 ) Ghasre Shirin 1980 Alireza Hashemian Heidarian ( F- 4 ) Homayoun Hekmati ( F-4 ) Over Persian Gulf 5 June 1984 Behzad Hessaree ( F-4 ) Bushehr 31 Jul.1982 Ali Ilkhani ( F-4 ) Ghasre 1980 Ali Jahan Shahloo ( F-5 ) Iraq Ghafoor Jeddi ( F-4 ) Jooraki ( F-5 ) West of Dezful 5 Oct. 1980 Kadkhoodaee ( F-4 ) Over Mahshahr 28 Sept. 1980Mohammad Kambakhsh Ziaee ( F-5 ) 24 Nov. 1980 Mohammad Reza Karimi ( F-4 ) Over Mahshahr 28 Sept.1980 Parviz Keyhani Nejad ( F-4 ) Over Persian Gulf ( F-4 ) Ghasre 1980 Youness Khoshbin ( F-5 ) Karkheh Gholamhossein.Khoshniyyat ( F-5 ) Karkheh Ali Khosravi ( F-4 ) Ghodrat Kianjoo ( F-4 ) Back seat of Bijan Haji Masoud Mohammadi ( F-4 ) Bushehr 2 Oct. 1980 Darioush Nadimi ( F-4 ) Ali Naghdi ( F-5 ) over Sahand & Sabalan-Tabriz Reza Nooroozi ( F-4 ) West of Ahwaz Mohamad Ali Oshrieh ( Farzin ) ( F-5 ) Over Ahwaz Firooz Rahmatian ( F-4 ) Gholamreza Ranjbaran ( F-5 ) 7 Oct. 1980Roozitalab ( F-4 )Salehi ( F-4 ) (Pour Rezaee's Wingman 19 Sept.1980) Mostafa "Hamid" Saghiri ( F-4 ) 25 Sept.1980 Changiz Sepehr ( F-5 ) West of Dezful 5 Oct. 1980
Mohammad Shademan Bakht ( F-4 ) 24 Oct. 1981
Ali Shamsbeigi ( F-4 ) was killed on Helicopter crash over Kurdestan
Homayoon Shoghi ( F-4 )Mohammad Shokoohnia ( RF-4 ) Ali Soleimani ( F-4 ) Persian Gulf Shahab Soltani ( F-5 ) West of Dezful Abbas Soltani ( RF-4 ) Hassan Taleb Mehr ( F-4 ) Ghasre1980 Ebrahim Tavakoli ( F-5 ) over Ahwaz ( F-4 ) 1980 Mahmood Yazdanpanah ( F-5 ) Parviz Zabihi ( F-5) NE of Mosel 13 Nov. 1980Zanjani ( F-5 ) Soleymanieh (Sharifi's Wingman)Kazem Zarifkhadem ( F-5 ) West of Khaneh inside Iraq 25 Sept. 1980 Fereidoun Zolfaghari ( RF-4 ) Over Majnoon Islands 10 June 1980Mehdi Zooghi ( F-4 ) Iraq Rahim Zooghi Moghadam ( F-5 ) 12 Jul. 1982
Total: 78 pilots
Appendix V
Air Forces[35]
1979 1982 1986
Iran
Combat Aircraft 447 90 80-105
Personnel 70,000 ? 35,000
Iraq
Combat Aircraft 339 330 400-500
Personnel 38,000 ? 40,000
End Notes
[1] Left to Right: Cpt.Azizollah Ja'afari(F-4)K.I.A. in 5th day of the war over west of Iran, Lt.Touraj Yousef(F-5)K.I.A. in Sept.22/1980 Dezful ,before landing. Lt.Khosro Akhbari(F-4)K.I.A. in Feb.5/1981 courtesy iiaf.net
[2] In 1979 Iran’s air force numbered 447 combat aircraft(Cordesman page 75) compared to Iraq 339, Egypt 563, Israel 576 and Saudi Arabia 178. In addition Iran’s air force was primarily equipped with F-4Es. These aircraft were delivered to Iran in 1971(iiaf.net). Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Americas other major Muslim allies in the region received these planes in 1972 and 1974 . Israel received the plane in 1969(http://home.sprynet.com/~anneled/IAFinventory.html). This pattern whereby Iran was the first nation in the region to receive America’s newest technology would continue until the fall of Shah.
[3] On October 27, 1976 Iran ordered 160 F-16s, with an additional 140 to be purchased later. By 1977 spare parts were shipped to Iran, however the aircraft themselves were never sent due to the Islamic revolution. Instead some of the F-16s were sold to Israel, where they were immediately used in the raid on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear installation on June 7th, 1981. Karsh, Efraim The Iran-Iraq War page 15 confirms the canceling of the order.
[4] O’Balance, Edgar. The Gulf War page 18.
[5] O’balance page 20 and Karsh, Efraim The Iran Iraq War a Military Analysis page 14.
[6] Karsh 14, Balance 20
[7] General Rabbiie was removed on Feburary 12th and shot on April 9th(O’balance 21 and iiaf.net), General Seyyed Mahdiyoum succeeded him and was removed in three days, while his replacement General Shahpour Azbarzin was in charge for only two weeks. In August General Bahman Bagheri was made Commander/Chief of Staff of the air force.
[8] See Nice Try, Top Gunned Down, or Anatomy of a Coup all published in Iranian.com. Also one can consult iiaf.net for lists of the officers killed as a result.
[9] The Shah’s Air Force had been named the Imperial Iranian Air Force, the Islamic government removed the word ‘Imperial’ and it became the Islamic Republic Iran Air Force.
[10] Tehran, Tabriz, Hamadan, Dezfull, Agha Jari, Bushehr, Shiraz, Isfahan, Bandar Abbas, Chabahar(iiaf.net)
[11] Iran also possessed 500 combat helicopters, Chubin, Shahram Iran and Iraq At War page 303.
[12] In 1980 and 1981 the first Mig 25s and French made Mirage F-1were delivered to Iraq. Balance page 71-72.
[13] Balance page 44
[14] iiaf.net
[15] The Iraqi evacuation and the Iranian assault are confirmed in most accounts of the war. Balance 42 and http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_205.shtml.
[16] iiaf.net and Balance as well as acig.org confirm the flyover and the losses.
[17] Balance 125
[18] ibid page 71
[19] Karsh 37, at least 50 pilots were also killed during the first 6 months of the war, iiaf.net.
[20] Balance 44
[21] Staudenmair 44
[22] Balance 51
[23] Staudenmaier 43
[24] iiaf.net
[25] Balance 71
[26] Balance 125 and iiaf.net
[27] Clancy, Tom. Every Man a Tiger. Page 357.
[28] Balance 125
[29] Karsh 40
[30] Arab-persian, Shia-Sunni, Semite-Aryan(Pipes), Economics, weapons systems, cold war, oil, gulf versus Iran, regional perspective, Secular vs. Islamist, pan-arab versus pan-islam. The perspectives and aspects of the war are almost endless. The chemical weapons and development of WMD. Minorities. Language. Kurdish. International involvement. Legal issues and international law.
[31] Compiled from Balance The Gulf War and Staudenmaier page 43
[32] iiaf.net
[33] iiaf.net
[34] iiaf.net
[35] Cordesman, Anthony, The Gulf War page 74 and Chubin, Shahram Iran and Iraq at War page 303
Bibliography
Chubin, Shahram. Iran and Iraq at War. London, 1988.
Clancy, Tom. Every Man a Tiger. New York, 2000.
Cooper, Tom. Iranian F-4 Phantom II Units in Combat. Schiffer publishing, 2000.
Cooper, Tom. Iranian F-14 Tomcat Units in Combat. Osprey Publishing, 2004.
Cooper, Tom. Iran-Iraq War in the Air. Osprey Publishing, 2004.
Maull, Hanns W.(ed). Cordesman, Anthony H. The Regional balance in The Gulf War: Regional and International Dimensions. London 1989.
Karsh, Efraim. The Iran-Iraq War: A Military Analysis. Adelphi Papers, London, Spring 1987.
The Role of Airpower in the Iran-Iraq War, Maj. Ronald E. Bergquist, Air University Press, Maxwell AFB, 1988
The Longest War: The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict, Dilip Hiro, Routledge, New York, 1991
The Lessons of Modern War, Vol. 2, The Iran-Iraq War, Anthony H. Cordesman and Abraham R. Wagner, Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1990
The Iran-Iraq War: A military Analysis, Efraim Karsh, The International Institute For Strategic Studies, Adelphi papers, No. 220, Dorchester, UK: Henry Ling, 1987
The Gulf and The West - Strategic Relations and Military Realities, Anthony H. Cordesman, Westview Press/Mansell Publishing Ltd., 1988
Edgar O’balance. The Gulf War. London. 1988.
Khadduri, Majid. The Gulf War: The Origins and Implications of the Iraq-Iran Conflict. Oxford, 1988.
Marine Corps historical publication. FMFRP 3-203, Lessons Learned: Iran-Iraq War. 10 December 19990. accessed March 20th 2005. http://fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/war/docs/3203/appd.pdf
Tahir-Kheli, Shirined(ed). The Iran-Iraq War: New Weapons, Old Conflicts. A Strategic Anlysis by William O. Staudenmaier. New York, 1983.
Egyptian Air Force. Global Security. Accessed March 20th, 2005. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/egypt/airforce.htm
Royal Saudi Air Force. Global Security. Accessed March 20th, 2005. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/gulf/rsaf.htm
Modern Persia and Iran. Accessed March 20th, 2005. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0775363.html
Israel Air Force Aircraft inventories. Updated september 2, 2004. Accessed March 21, 2005. http://home.sprynet.com/~anneled/IAFinventory.html
I Persian Gulf War. http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_205.shtml. Accessed on March 21, 2005.
Nice Try. July 12, 2004. Iranian.com. Accessed March 19th, 2004.
- Top Gunned Down. http://www.iranian.com/Ghaffari/2004/July/Mehdiyoun/index.html
Anatomy of a Coup: a Desperate attempt to save Iran. July 23, 2004. http://www.iranian.com/Pesar/2004/July/Nojeh/index.html. Accessed March 21, 2005.
Their Last Mission:
The destruction of the Iranian Air Force 1979-1981
Seth J. Frantzman
March 25th, 2005
In the spring of 1979 Iran had one of the most highly trained air-forces in the world, flying some of the latest American made Jet aircraft. Three years later, after the turmoil of revolution and the outbreak of war with Iraq this glorious arm had been shattered, its more then 445 combat aircraft reduced to less then 90. The number of personnel working in the air force had declined from 100,000 to less then half that number. The majority of these losses and the collapse of the Iranian air force was however not merely a result of the conflict with Iraq, rather the decline in Iran’s air force can be seen as a magnified symbol of the twin shocks of revolution and total war. Sources on the Iran-Iraq war are by and large dated, having been written from the period 1986-1991. The coming of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the ensuing conflict with the United States changed the focus of much of the research on the conflict and today it has receded from memory. Yet through the lens of the Iranian Air Force and its performance in the opening days of the war we can see many of the themes of the war brought to the surface, and hopefully shed new light on the many perspectives surrounding the Iran-Iraq war.
The Iranian Air Force before September 22, 1980
The Shah’s relationship with the Iranian Air Force was not untypical of relationships between various Middle Eastern leaders and their air forces. Traditionally the Air arm has been a coveted source of pride for the nations of the Middle East, a place from which leaders of nations have materialized. This is the case in Egypt and Syria, and King Hussein was an avid pilot himself. Having come to power in 1941 Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlevi worked to make his air force not only modern but also larger and more advanced then any of his neighbors in the Gulf region[2]. As a staunch ally of America Iran’s air force was equipped with the latest F-4 and F-14 aircraft, and the first batch of 160 F-16s were to be delivered in 1980[3].
A rare photo of a female member of the Shah’s Air Force courtesy iiaf.net
The Air Force became politicized along with the rest of Iran in the late 1970s. After the Shah departed for exile on the January 16th, 1979 the soldiers in the Air Force became increasingly involved in politics. On the 3rd of February many technicians began to be involved in street demonstrations and the daily factional fighting in Tehran. At the Doshan-Tapeh air base outside Tehran personnel “refused to arm, or service, combat aircraft or helicopters that might be used against anti-Shahist demonstrations.”[4] During the street fighting of the 9th through 11th of February some ‘units’ of the Air Force engaged in armed clashes with the pro-Shahist units of the Imperial Guard and other loyal army units. It appears as if these Air Force personnel were mainly enlisted men, maintenance people, and lower ranks, but the fact that the Air Force, usually considered so loyal, should have been involved at all is proof to the havoc that the revolution had wrought on the country.
The 11th of February marked the end of the military involvement in the chaos that had consumed Iran since the Shah’s departure. The resignation of Prime Minister Bakhtiar and his replacement by Khomeini supporter Mehdi Bazarghan was the first in a series of events that led to the installation of the Islamic revolution in Iran. This turmoil affected the army because from the period of January 17th Khomeini had been calling on soldiers to desert their units and many of the more radical anti-shah elements were now campaigning to have a ‘People’s Army’. [5] These factors contributed to a massive decline in the number of people employed by the Air Force, its strength falling from 100,000 on the first of the year to around 65,000.
The decline in manpower can be inferred to have affected the lower ranks more, but the officers were also affected, not as much by desertion but rather by the purges of the new Islamic regime. These purges began in February and would last through the end of 1979. In all about 85 senior officers were shot, and most of the highest ranks forced to retire. Later in the year a wider purge took place which netted a total of 12000 members of the regular army. It can be estimated that as many as 2000 Air Force personnel were removed, and forcibly retired. In addition Air Force commander General Amir Hossein Rabbiie was executed on April 9th, 1979 and General Nader Jahanbani was shot on March 12th. In all the Air Force is estimated to have lost half of its pilots and 15-20% of its officers, NCOs and technicians in this period.[6] At the same time as the officer corps was being purged the Air Force suffered the turmoil of having 3 commanders in a six month period.[7] The creation of a ‘Revolutionary Guards Corps’ on 16 June 1979 inaugurated a new era in Iranian military thinking whereby the regular army, considered hostile to the regime or at least not supportive, was to be shunted aside in favor of more loyal units. This, like the rest of the turmoil of 1979 had the affect of starving the Air Force of recruits loyal to the regime and of depriving it of the financial and technological support a modern air force needs to survive.
Throughout the Spring and summer Iranian Air Force personnel had continued to be killed by the regime, this included 4 who were killed in January 26th and three more on June 7th. One can assume that even if the executions were results of actual plots, these killings had an adverse affect on the opinion of the Air Force for the government. The third phase of the purge of the air force began following the ‘Nojeh’ coup attempt of July 20, 1980. In all 50 Air Force personnel, including 2 generals, a colonel and four majors were executed for involvement. The details of the coup attempt involved pro-shah forces from the top echelons of many of the military branches and a half baked plan to bomb Khomeini’s residence and raise an army of Baluchi troops to take Tehran.[8]
If one assumes that the Air Force had a pilot to plane ratio of 2 to1, then one can infer that by the end of 1979 their would still have been enough pilots left in the Air Force to fly many of the planes necessary. However the revolution had wreaked havoc not only on the Air Force personnel but also on the hardware available to it. America had been Iran’s major supplier of military hardware since the outbreak of the Cold War. The arrival of an Islamic regime uniquely hostile to American interests meant not only the canceling of the F-16 deal but also the end of any shipments of spare parts or equipment destined for the Iranian Air Force[9]. The most advanced plane in Iran’s arsenal, the F-14, was deprived of its avionics with the departure of American military advisors. The F-4 and F-5 fleets, which made up the bulk of Iran’s combat aircraft, now were deprived of spare parts. In an organization now numbering 60,000 people, with a close knit group of officers these deprivations as well as the killing of their comrades put the Iranian pilots into a disturbing situation, not unlike the one faced by Russia’s army under Stalin’s purges.
Iranian Air Force Bases 1980
Courtesy iiaf.net
The Outbreak of War, September 22nd, 1980-1982
On September 21st, the day before the Iraqi invasion, the Iranian Air force had 447 combat aircraft stationed at 10 air bases throughout the country.[10] There were 79 modern F-14s and 209 F-4s and 167 F-5s.[11] In theory Iran’s Air Force was more then a match for the Iraqi one. On paper Iraq only possessed 332 combat aircraft, consisting mainly of Mig 17s, 21s and 23s.[12] Since the Iranian pilots had adhered to NATO requirements for flying time(training time in the aircraft) whereas at the outbreak of war the Iraqi pilots had “limited hours flying time” it would have been surprising if the Iranian Air Force had not proved dramatically superior.[13] It is for this reason that Saddam Hussien opted for an Israeli style air raid on Iranian Air fields, to be followed up by an armored blitzkrieg to capture the province of Khuzestan in south west Iran.
The Iraqi plan to catch Iran’s Air Force on the ground succeeded, in the sense that Iran appeared to be completely surprised and its Air Force made few attempts to intercept the attack. The Iraqi air assault on September 22nd hit six Iranian Air bases, and 4 Iranian Army bases.[14] However, having learned from the Six Day War, Iran had established concrete bunkers where most of its combat air craft were stored, thus the Iraqis succeed mainly in cratering a few Iranian runways, without causing any significant damage to Iran’s Air Force.
The Iranian Air Force, despite low moral and declining maintenance standards, responded quickly, bombing a series of Iraqi installations on September 23rd. In much the same way as the Nazi invasion of Russia caused the Russian people to rally around a regime that under normal circumstances would be hated, the Iranian Air Force likewise rallied around its nation, the Persian, Shia nation defending itself from the Arab onslaught. By the night of the 23rd more then 140 Iranian Aircraft had completed sorties into Iraqi airspace. The Iraqis, anticipating such a counterstroke had meanwhile evacuated most of their aircraft to other Arab states, such as Saudi Arabia.[15] The Iranian counter attack is evidence that despite the shake ups in the command structure the pre-revolution plans for countering an Iraqi attack had been left intact and the pilots were able to execute these plans efficiently. The best evidence for this is that although the Iranian air force was able to maintain an “aerial siege” of Iraq in the first weeks of the war, these capabilities quickly trailed off as the number of sorties and targets of mission declined dramatically.
The reasons for the precipice like drop off in the capabilities of the Iranian Air Force had little to do with the Iraqi ability to combat the Iranians and more to do with the nature of the Iranian Air Force’s hardware, which consisted of American made items that were no longer available. The lack of plans for an extended war with Iraq can also be blamed and it here that we see the affects of the revolutionary regimes purges taking their greatest affect. The destruction of the higher echelons of the air force left a planning vacuum, that could not be filled, and their was little in the was of training facilities left to fill it. The pilots who reacted in September 23rd did so out of loyalty to their nation and with practiced plans, as time progressed no more concrete ideas would be forthcoming.
Calculating Iranian losses in the opening stage of the war is relatively easy, since a number of online databases have been maintained with accurate statistics on the subject.
By the end of 1980 the Iranian air force had lost 34 airplanes in air to air combat. By contrast in 1981 the Iranian Air Force lost only 13 planes in air to air combat, and in 1982 only 9 were lost. The decline in numbers is not actually indicative of Iranian ability to out-fly the Iraqis, rather it is indicative of the far fewer sorties being flown by Iran.
The best way to understand this is to take the case of Iran’s 79 F-14s based in Shiraz and Isfahan. In the first three years of the war Iran is estimated to have only lost 3 of these planes. Yet by February 11, 1985 when the entire F-14 squadron did a flyover of Tehran(to prove that Iran still had an Air Force) it consisted of only 25 planes.[16] The fate of these planes is connected with a policy that Iran enacted soon after the war began, the directive of ‘vulturisation’ of the planes with mechanical problems to help keep the best planes flying. Iran, cut off from her U.S sources, was reduced to “scavenging the world’s arms bazaars for spares”.[17]
Getting at the numbers of Iranian aircraft that were air worthy or flying at any given time is tough not only because the Iranian government broadcasted propaganda but also due a simple lack of information. The worst problem plaguing the aircraft was not the Iraqis but rather the lack of spare parts for the aircraft. The ‘vulturisation’ process reduced the Iranian air force to about 100 planes by the end of 1981.[18] Losses of planes due to combat can be said to have roughly equaled those due to ‘vulturisation’ if we accept the figure of 90 Iranian planes being lost by the end of October 1980.[19] It is estimated that by the spring of 1981 the Air Force had reached as low of perhaps 25 airworthy aircraft.[20] This number would increase to about 50 as the years passed, and as the Iranian government obtained spare parts from clandestine American and Israeli sources and other countries including South Korea and Libya.[21] The virtual grounding of the Iranian Air Force in late 1980 and early 1981 due to technical problems helps to explain a second dimension of the conflict waging within Iran’s armed forces. With the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war many Iranian veterans had volunteered their services and many of those who had deserted their units in the spring returned, swept up in a mood of national preservation to expel the Arab invader. The President of Iran, Bani-Sadr persuaded Khomeini to release many of the imprisoned Air Force personnel, mostly urgently needed pilots and technicians. Former senior officers were even recalled as ‘consultants’.[22] At this time Iranians who had even left the country began to return hoping to help their country during the ensuing conflict. The amnesty for certain necessary pilots and the return of other pilots helped the Iranian Air Force in the opening days of the war, and was instrumental in slowing the Iraqi advance and spreading fear in Baghdad itself.
The increased efficacy of the Air Force can be seen in some of the more daring raids it engaged in during the last months of 1980 and the spring of 1981. On the 30 September, 1980 Iran bombed, but failed to destroy the Iraqi nuclear reactor(Osirak, later destroyed by Israel). On April 4, 1981 Iran embarked on an 810 kilometer raid deep into Iraq, bombing a series of Iraqi Air fields.[23] In 1980 alone 70 Iraqi planes were defeated in Air to Air combat. The number of enemy aircraft destroyed in the same manner in 1981 was reduced to 24, still a significant number for an Air Force that was only able to put a few dozen planes in the air at any one time.
The return of the exiled and imprisoned pilots gave the Iranian Air Force a burst of man power and fresh crews, but it also led to heightened by suspicions by the Islamic authorities. The fears of fresh purges were realized over the years as 4 Colonels and 4 Majors who had returned were later imprisoned and shot by the government in renewed witch hunts of those accused of disloyalty.[24] The irony of this is that the government was not altogether false in its feeling that the Air Force was more loyal to the nation then it was to the new regime.
The decline in the air capabilities of the Air Force also corresponds to a renewed crack down and a renewed purge of the Air Force in the spring and summer of 1981. A year previously Air Force officers had involved themselves in the Nojeh coup, against Khomeini and president Bani-Sadr, now the Air Force was implicated in aiding Bani-Sadr as he fled the country in August, 1981. The accusation was justified, since the pilot who flew Bani-Sadr into exile was one of the men he had helped obtain the release of to fight in the war. The Air Force was grounded following the incident and 200 pilots and their crews were imprisoned. The Islamic regime now realized the Air Force had to be brought totally under its thumb and a tribunal of ‘Mullahs’ was put in place to authorize every flight. The Islamic authorities had apparently learned this idea from the Soviets who likewise kept political officers within the ranks to sniff out disloyalty. When pilots were allowed to fly they were given “the minimum of fuel required to for the mission. Apart from being demoralized, Iranian pilots lacked sufficient flying time and experience owing to being grounded so often and for so long”.[25] For this reason, of the more then 81 Iranian pilots killed in the Iran-Iraq war, not one was brought down in the summer of 1981. To be an Iranian Air Force officer in that time meant one was more at risk of imprisonment or execution on the ground from the Islamic government then they were in the air from Iraqi missiles and anti-aircraft fire. Likewise during the period, not one Iraqi plane was destroyed in Air to Air combat between May 16th and September 1st. The Iranian Air Force basically ceased to function.
Iran’s premier aircraft, the F-14 had disappeared from the skies during this time. The Mullahs did everything they could, short of disbanding the Air Force, to ensure that it fell into line and could no longer participate into anti-Khomeini acts. Nevertheless the increased purges, and heightened state of government surveillance helped make the pilots decisions for them, by 1983 they began to defect, and at least one even flew to Iraq.[26]
General Hazin(right), who had been a captain in 1980 survived the purges and the war. In the background is an F-14, Iran’s premier aircraft, which suffered due to lack of spare parts. Courtesy iiaf.net.
In the book Every Man a Tiger American Air Force General Chuck Horner makes a series of observations regarding the Iranian Air Force. “Among every nation in the world you’ll find a few ‘aces’-young men, and now women, capable of winning aerial engagements time after time…The Iranian pilots, while eager obviously suffered as a result of the fundamentalist revolution.”[27] In the end, as the war progressed Iran did retain some pilots who, despite the tremors of the revolution and war, remained loyal to the regime and continued to fly into the late 1980s. Some of these pilots had obviously been vetted by the ‘mullahs’ following the 1981 purges and they had found them sufficiently ‘Islamic’. Edgar O’Ballance in his study of the war explains that after 1982 the Air Force was “distrusted, suspected and grounded most of the time; and there were frequent purges of pilots, flying crew and technical staff.”[28] On 28th of May 1983 five more officers were arrested and accused of plotting a coup. Former Iranian Air Force personnel now living in exile confirm that many ‘war heroes’ stayed on in Iran, some climbing to be generals of the Air Force during the war, and retiring afterward. In some of the photographs of these men it is clear by their new found beard growth that they are attempting to fit in or at least prove their loyalty to the regime.
General Abbas Babaie was religious before the revolution, pilots such as these give an example of the way in which the Iranian Air Force was a microcosm of the society as a whole. Picture courtesy iiaf.net.
The outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war was most likely looked upon as a good testing ground for new Soviet equipment and by 1982 the Soviets had returned as technicians in Iraq, after withdrawing personnel at the outbreak of war. The Americans, although hostile to the Iranian regime, were also interested in seeing how their F-4 and specifically F-14s would hold up against Soviet SAM systems and the Mig fighters. The first of December 1981 brought the first downing of a French made Mirage and December 1982 saw the first downing of a Mig-25. During the course of the war more then 100 Iraqi fighters would be brought down in Air to Air combat. Certainly in the case of the Americans since the Iranian pilots had mostly been trained at Miramar, in America, it could be concluded that the American weapon system was superior. In this case the Americans might have been more impressed with the Iranian victory over the Iraqis then the Israel aerial victory over Syria in the same period, since the Iraqi’s were believed to be better trained. The defeat of French Mirage’s may have also been studied by the British before they embarked on their overseas adventure to recover the Falklands from Argentina in 1982. Argentina had been supplied with similar French airplanes.
The superpowers were also certainly monitoring the anti-aircraft systems that each had supplied to the hostile nations. In his Military Analysis of the Iran-Iraq war Efraim Karsh writes “Both Iraq and Iran began the war with impressive air defense systems…despite the large inventories, the air defense systems have been most disappointing in action…Iraq and Iran failed totally to integrate their air defense elements into an overall system.”[29] In the case of Iraq it is not clear why this was the case, but in the case of Iran all these disappointments rest squarely on the shoulders of the revolutionary regime and its draconian policies against the Air Force.
Why the Iranian Air Force?
The Iran Iraq war was a massive war, and can be analyzed from more then a dozen viewpoints.[30] The Iranian air force however presents a smaller controlled body that can be viewed not necessarily as symbolic of the country but symbolic of many of the clashes between the regime, the nation and the conflict waging around it. The Iranian air force, its performance and the purging of it, including the total sapping of its strength, not from combat losses, but from mechanical and other losses, is a mirror of the nation as a whole, destroyed not only from without but also in many ways rotting from within, at war with itself almost as much as it was with the Arab enemy.
Notes on Sources
The Sources used as a bases of this study are primarily books written in the period 1986-1992 and websites where recent data has been compiled regarding pilots killed in the war and aircraft downed during the conflict. The sources written as the war was going must be judged by the fact that they relied in many cases on news print accounts and radio broadcasts, some of which may have been fabricated or issued for propaganda purposes. The website iiaf.net contains a plethora of data and first hand accounts by people who were employed by the Iranian Air Force before and in some cases during the war. However since the website is run by Iranian exiles not sympathetic to the current regime, although deeply sympathetic to their country, it is politically motivated and must be judged accordingly. The website acig.org is maintained by military enthusiasts and makes a point of vetting its sources and coding its data accordingly, and thus it is more reliable, although mostly useful for the military enthusiast.
Appendix I
Major operations by Iranian Air Force 1980-1982(not a complete list)[31]
September 23, 1980 140 Iranian F-4D/E Phantoms, F-5E/Fs and F-14s aerial ‘onslaught’ against Iraq.
September 30th, 1980 Iran bombs Iraqi nuclear reactor
October 7th Iranian aircraft bomb Iraqi oil installations at Kirkuk and Sulaimaniyeh
April 4, 1981 F-4s strike H-3 oil and military complex
February 1982 Iranian Aircraft bomb Kirkuk
Appendix II
Iranian Air Force Personnel executed by the government since 1979[32]
1-General Amir Hossein Rabiie- ( Pilot) April 9, 1979 Tehran2-General Nader Jahanbani - ( Pilot ) March 12, 1979 Tehran3-General Hashem Berenjian - ( Pilot ) April 14,1979 Tehran4- Colonel Siavash Bayani ( Killed after returning back to Iran)5- Colonel Ali Gilani (Pilot) ( Killed after returning back to Iran)6- Colonel Bahram Ikani (Pilot) ( Killed after returning back to Iran)7- Colonel Satar Satari ( Killed after returning back to Iran)8- Colonel Masoud Babaii ( Pilot) ( Killed in Iran) 9-Colonel Ahmad Moradi Talebi (August 10, 1987 Geneva- Switzerland ) 10-Major Ghodrat Torkaman - ( Pilot ) Dec. 21, 1981 Tehran 11- Major Mir Heydar Mokhayer ( Jan. 26, 1980 Tabriz )12- Major Behrooz Behroozi (Pilot) ( Killed after returning back to Iran)13- Major Bahman Partovi (Pilot) ( Killed after returning back to Iran)14- Major Mohammad Hossein Azizian ( Killed after returning back to Iran)15- Major Aliakbar Mohammadi ( Pilot ) Jan-16-1987 Hamburg- Germany 16- Capt. Hamid Nemati (Pilot) ( He was kidnapped in Greece and smuggled to Iran)17- Lt. Hatam Doakhan (Pilot)( Was killed in Kordestan) 18- Lt. Allahverdi Hajesfandiyari ( Jan. 26, 1980 Tabriz )19- Homafar ( Later Col. ) ...? Pedram killed in 2001 ( Killed after returning back to Iran) 20- Sgt. Mehdi Babaei Farshbaf ( Jan. 26, 1980 Tabriz )21- Sgt. Sirous Pazireh ( Jan. 26, 1980 Tabriz )22- Sgt. Bahman Davoudi ( Jun. 7, 1980 Tabriz )23- Sgt. Mansour Farzam ( Jun. 7, 1980 Tabriz )24- Sgt. Kazem Lotfi ( Jun. 7, 1980 Tabriz )25- Sgt. ......... Javan Mardi ( Feb. 6, 1980 Bushehr )26- Sgt. Siawash Nourouzi ( May 16, 1980 Hamedan )Killed in Nojeh uprising: 27- General Saeed Mehdioun (Pilot) August 15, 1980 Tehran28 - General Ayat Mohagheghi (Pilot) July 20, 1980 Tehran29 - Colonel Daryoush Jalali (Pilot) July 31, 1980 Tehran 30 - Major Faroukhzad Jahangiri (Pilot) July 20, 1980 Tehran31- Major Iraj Soltani Jay (Pilot) August 7, 1980 Tehran 32- Major Kavous Alizadeh August 7, 1980 Tehran 33- Major Omid Ali Boveiri (Pilot) July 24, 1980 Tehran 34 - Captain Mohammad Malek (Pilot) July 20, 1980 Tehran35 - Captain Bijan Iran Nejad Sabet July 20, 1980 Tehran36 - Captain Karim Afrouz (Pilot) July 24, 1980 Tehran 37- Captain Mohammad Behrooz Fard (Pilot) July 31, 1980 Tehran38 - Captain Hormoz Zamanpour August 15, 1980 Tehran39 - Captain Ali Asgar Soleymani (Pilot) July 24, 1980 Tehran 40 - Captain Nasser Zandi (Pilot) July 24, 1980 Tehran41- Captain Ali Shafigh Sept. 16, 1980 Tehran42- Lt. Nejat Yahya (Pilot) July 31, 1980 Tehran43 - Lt. Mohammad Ali Saghafi (Pilot) August 7, 1980 Tehran44 - Lt. Hossein Shokri (Pilot) August 7, 1980 Tehran 45 - Lt. Jafar Rastgoo August 7, 1980 Tehran 46 - Lt. Nasser Rokni (Pilot) August 7, 1980 Tehran 47- Lt. Jalal Asgari August 7, 1980 Tehran 48 - Lt. Ayoub Habibi July 24, 1980 Tehran 49- Lt. Mohammad Mehdi Azimi Far (Pilot) July 24, 1980 Tehran50 - Lt. Mohammad Ali Farzam July 31, 1980 Tehran 51- Ho22mafar Yousef Pour Rezaee July 20, 1980 Tehran52 - Homafar Jafar Mazaheri Kashani July 24, 1980 Tehran 53 - Sgt. Hossein Karimpourtari July 31, 1980 Tehran54 - Sgt. Mojtaba Moradi July 31, 1980 Tehran55 - Sgt. Siawash Nouroozi July 31, 1980 Tehran56 - Sgt. Ahmad Mohamadi July 31, 1980 Tehran57 - Sgt. Bakhsh Ali Karimian
( and 22 other enlisted personnel )
Appendix III
Iranian Combat Aircraft downed by Iraqi’s 1980-1982[33]
Date Aircraft
23Sep80
F-5E
23Sep80
F-5E
23Sep80
Il-76MD
25Sep80
F-4
26Sep80
F-5E
30Sep80
F-5E
12Oct80
F-5E
12Oct80
AB.214C
12Oct80
AB.214C
15Oct80
F-4E
15Oct80
F-4E
15Oct80
F-4E
15Oct80
F-4E
16Oct80
F-4D
19Oct80
F-4E
20Oct80
F-5E
20Oct80
F-5E
23Oct80
F-5E
23Oct80
F-5E
24Oct80
F-14A
1Nov80
F-5E
14Nov80
F-5E
22Nov80
F-4D
26Nov80
F-5E
26Nov80
F-5E
28Nov80
F-4E
16Oct80
F-4E
16Dec80
MiG-21
16Dec80
F-5E
16Dec80
flew himself into ground
9Jan81
F-4E
12Jan81
AH-1J
18Jan81
F-4E
4Feb81
F-4E
Apr81
MiG-21R
3May81
Gulfstream III
??May81
F-4E
??May81
F-4E
??May81
F-5E
??May81
F-5E
??May81
AH-1J
7May81
F-4E
8May81
F-5E
1Apr82
F-5E
??Oct82
AH-1J
??Oct82
F-4E
27Jan82
RF-4E
26Feb82
F-5E
16Jul82
F-4E
??Oct82
AH-1J
??Dec82
F-5E
Appendix IV
Iranian Pilots Killed in Action 1980-1982[34]
Abbaszadeh Khosrow Abdolkarimi ( F-4 ) Bandar Abbas Abolhassan Aboulhassani ( F-5 ) over Ducan Dam Aboutalebi ( F-4 ) Bushehr Hassan Afshin Azar ( F-5 ) Mossel Nosratolah Aghaee ( C-130 ) Kermanshah 7 Jan. 1981 Abbas .Akbari ( F-4 ) Iraq Khosrow Akhbari ( F-4 ) Davood Akradi ( F-4 ) Karkook 30 Oct.1981 Ali AliAkbaree ( F-4 ) Bushehr 29 Sept. 1980 Masoud Amiri ( F-4 )Oct 1980 Asdolah AssadZadeh ( F-5 ) Over Faw Asadolah Barbari ( F-5 ) over Rawanduz Sept 1980 Mohammad Balazadeh ( F-5 ) Bazargan ( F-5 ) Mohammad Hossein Darabee ( F-5 ) 17 Mar. 1981 Ebrahim Delhamed ( F-5 ) 70 NM from Mosul Masihollah Din Mohammadi ( F-4 ) Abbas Dooran ( F-4 ) Baghdad 22 Jul. 1982 Ali Eqhbali ( F-5 ) over Aqrah Mohammad Eshghipoor ( F-4 ) Abbas Eslami Nia ( F-4 ) Baghdad 1980 Farahani ( F-4 ) Ghasre Shirin Abbas Fazilat ( F-5 ) over Rawanduz Hassan Ghahestani ( F-4 ) Reza Gharabaghi ( F-4 ) Gholam Gholamrezaee ( F-5 ) Karkheh1980 Khalil Ghobadi ( Helicopter ) Iraq Mansour Ghoreyshi ( F-4 ) Mahshahr 7 Feb. 1981 Bijan Haji ( F-4 ) Over Iraq 10 Oct. 1980 Bijan Harooni ( F-5 ) Dezful Hassani ( F-4 ) Ghasre Shirin 1980 Alireza Hashemian Heidarian ( F- 4 ) Homayoun Hekmati ( F-4 ) Over Persian Gulf 5 June 1984 Behzad Hessaree ( F-4 ) Bushehr 31 Jul.1982 Ali Ilkhani ( F-4 ) Ghasre 1980 Ali Jahan Shahloo ( F-5 ) Iraq Ghafoor Jeddi ( F-4 ) Jooraki ( F-5 ) West of Dezful 5 Oct. 1980 Kadkhoodaee ( F-4 ) Over Mahshahr 28 Sept. 1980Mohammad Kambakhsh Ziaee ( F-5 ) 24 Nov. 1980 Mohammad Reza Karimi ( F-4 ) Over Mahshahr 28 Sept.1980 Parviz Keyhani Nejad ( F-4 ) Over Persian Gulf ( F-4 ) Ghasre 1980 Youness Khoshbin ( F-5 ) Karkheh Gholamhossein.Khoshniyyat ( F-5 ) Karkheh Ali Khosravi ( F-4 ) Ghodrat Kianjoo ( F-4 ) Back seat of Bijan Haji Masoud Mohammadi ( F-4 ) Bushehr 2 Oct. 1980 Darioush Nadimi ( F-4 ) Ali Naghdi ( F-5 ) over Sahand & Sabalan-Tabriz Reza Nooroozi ( F-4 ) West of Ahwaz Mohamad Ali Oshrieh ( Farzin ) ( F-5 ) Over Ahwaz Firooz Rahmatian ( F-4 ) Gholamreza Ranjbaran ( F-5 ) 7 Oct. 1980Roozitalab ( F-4 )Salehi ( F-4 ) (Pour Rezaee's Wingman 19 Sept.1980) Mostafa "Hamid" Saghiri ( F-4 ) 25 Sept.1980 Changiz Sepehr ( F-5 ) West of Dezful 5 Oct. 1980
Mohammad Shademan Bakht ( F-4 ) 24 Oct. 1981
Ali Shamsbeigi ( F-4 ) was killed on Helicopter crash over Kurdestan
Homayoon Shoghi ( F-4 )Mohammad Shokoohnia ( RF-4 ) Ali Soleimani ( F-4 ) Persian Gulf Shahab Soltani ( F-5 ) West of Dezful Abbas Soltani ( RF-4 ) Hassan Taleb Mehr ( F-4 ) Ghasre1980 Ebrahim Tavakoli ( F-5 ) over Ahwaz ( F-4 ) 1980 Mahmood Yazdanpanah ( F-5 ) Parviz Zabihi ( F-5) NE of Mosel 13 Nov. 1980Zanjani ( F-5 ) Soleymanieh (Sharifi's Wingman)Kazem Zarifkhadem ( F-5 ) West of Khaneh inside Iraq 25 Sept. 1980 Fereidoun Zolfaghari ( RF-4 ) Over Majnoon Islands 10 June 1980Mehdi Zooghi ( F-4 ) Iraq Rahim Zooghi Moghadam ( F-5 ) 12 Jul. 1982
Total: 78 pilots
Appendix V
Air Forces[35]
1979 1982 1986
Iran
Combat Aircraft 447 90 80-105
Personnel 70,000 ? 35,000
Iraq
Combat Aircraft 339 330 400-500
Personnel 38,000 ? 40,000
End Notes
[1] Left to Right: Cpt.Azizollah Ja'afari(F-4)K.I.A. in 5th day of the war over west of Iran, Lt.Touraj Yousef(F-5)K.I.A. in Sept.22/1980 Dezful ,before landing. Lt.Khosro Akhbari(F-4)K.I.A. in Feb.5/1981 courtesy iiaf.net
[2] In 1979 Iran’s air force numbered 447 combat aircraft(Cordesman page 75) compared to Iraq 339, Egypt 563, Israel 576 and Saudi Arabia 178. In addition Iran’s air force was primarily equipped with F-4Es. These aircraft were delivered to Iran in 1971(iiaf.net). Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Americas other major Muslim allies in the region received these planes in 1972 and 1974 . Israel received the plane in 1969(http://home.sprynet.com/~anneled/IAFinventory.html). This pattern whereby Iran was the first nation in the region to receive America’s newest technology would continue until the fall of Shah.
[3] On October 27, 1976 Iran ordered 160 F-16s, with an additional 140 to be purchased later. By 1977 spare parts were shipped to Iran, however the aircraft themselves were never sent due to the Islamic revolution. Instead some of the F-16s were sold to Israel, where they were immediately used in the raid on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear installation on June 7th, 1981. Karsh, Efraim The Iran-Iraq War page 15 confirms the canceling of the order.
[4] O’Balance, Edgar. The Gulf War page 18.
[5] O’balance page 20 and Karsh, Efraim The Iran Iraq War a Military Analysis page 14.
[6] Karsh 14, Balance 20
[7] General Rabbiie was removed on Feburary 12th and shot on April 9th(O’balance 21 and iiaf.net), General Seyyed Mahdiyoum succeeded him and was removed in three days, while his replacement General Shahpour Azbarzin was in charge for only two weeks. In August General Bahman Bagheri was made Commander/Chief of Staff of the air force.
[8] See Nice Try, Top Gunned Down, or Anatomy of a Coup all published in Iranian.com. Also one can consult iiaf.net for lists of the officers killed as a result.
[9] The Shah’s Air Force had been named the Imperial Iranian Air Force, the Islamic government removed the word ‘Imperial’ and it became the Islamic Republic Iran Air Force.
[10] Tehran, Tabriz, Hamadan, Dezfull, Agha Jari, Bushehr, Shiraz, Isfahan, Bandar Abbas, Chabahar(iiaf.net)
[11] Iran also possessed 500 combat helicopters, Chubin, Shahram Iran and Iraq At War page 303.
[12] In 1980 and 1981 the first Mig 25s and French made Mirage F-1were delivered to Iraq. Balance page 71-72.
[13] Balance page 44
[14] iiaf.net
[15] The Iraqi evacuation and the Iranian assault are confirmed in most accounts of the war. Balance 42 and http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_205.shtml.
[16] iiaf.net and Balance as well as acig.org confirm the flyover and the losses.
[17] Balance 125
[18] ibid page 71
[19] Karsh 37, at least 50 pilots were also killed during the first 6 months of the war, iiaf.net.
[20] Balance 44
[21] Staudenmair 44
[22] Balance 51
[23] Staudenmaier 43
[24] iiaf.net
[25] Balance 71
[26] Balance 125 and iiaf.net
[27] Clancy, Tom. Every Man a Tiger. Page 357.
[28] Balance 125
[29] Karsh 40
[30] Arab-persian, Shia-Sunni, Semite-Aryan(Pipes), Economics, weapons systems, cold war, oil, gulf versus Iran, regional perspective, Secular vs. Islamist, pan-arab versus pan-islam. The perspectives and aspects of the war are almost endless. The chemical weapons and development of WMD. Minorities. Language. Kurdish. International involvement. Legal issues and international law.
[31] Compiled from Balance The Gulf War and Staudenmaier page 43
[32] iiaf.net
[33] iiaf.net
[34] iiaf.net
[35] Cordesman, Anthony, The Gulf War page 74 and Chubin, Shahram Iran and Iraq at War page 303
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