Funeral of 270 martyrs in Tehran “unifying event”: Al-Monitor

Rasa - Al-Monitor editor Arash Karami wrote in his article about the recent massive funeral held in Tehran for the 270 Iranian divers who martyred with their hands tied, calling it a “unifying event.”

News ID: 2769

Date: 18 June 2015 - 17:22

RNA - Karami quoted the supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s message for the event in his column saying: “Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, praised the large turnout June 16 for the Tehran funeral of 270 veterans from the Iran-Iraq War as being “one of the most memorable events of the revolution.””

Iranians welcomed the body of 270 divers last Tuesday who were reportedly martyred in a military operation during 8 year Iran-Iraq war with their hands tied.

The columnist went on to say that the news of the martyred divers “shocked Iranians and served as a unifying event in remembrance of a painful era.”

The images of the bodies that were earlier released triggered a wave of sorrow and sympathy among Iranians from all walks of life.

Operation Karbala-4 was launched under the cover of darkness in late December 1986, and was meant to give Iranian forces a foothold along the Arvand Roud waterway. The Iranian troops would go on the offensive once across the waterway, and move onto the Iraqi port city of Basra. However, the operation did not go as planned.

According to the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Public Relations Office, Brigadier General Ramazan Sharif, the deposed Iraqi Ba’ath regime was notified of Operation Karbala-4 mainly through US intelligence operatives.

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