Operation Forty Stars

Operation Forty Stars
	Part of the Iran–Iraq War
Date	18 June 1988
Location	Mehran County, Iran
Result	MEK/PMOI victory Successful PMOI offensive; Iranian defensive failure;
Territorial; changes	PMOI captures Mehran from the Iranian forces
Belligerents
PMOI; Ba'athist Iraq (disputed, denied by PMOI and Iraq)	Iran
Commanders and leaders
Massoud Rajavi	Ruhollah Khomeini; Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani; Ali Shahbazi
Strength
22 PMOI brigades	16,000 (PMOI claim)
Casualties and losses
PMOI; 71 dead (PMOI claim); 240 wounded (PMOI claim); Thousands dead (Iranian claim)	8,000 dead and wounded (PMOI claim); 1,500–3,000 captured; 40 tanks; 20 APCs; numerous 155mm and 130mm artillery pieces; numerous TOW ATGMs; numerous HAWK SAM batteries, and hundreds of small arms, mortars and machineguns captured

Operation Forty Stars (Persian: عملیات چلچراغ), also known as Operation Forty Lights, or Chelcheraq, was a military operation conducted by the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) at the closing stages of the Iran–Iraq War on 18 June 1988.^[4] The goal was to occupy the Iranian border city of Mehran to control its oil fields, as well as Kurdish villages in the region.

In four days, the People's Mujahedin of Iran wiped out a Pasdaran division, seizing Mehran and building a bridgehead twelve miles into Iran.^[5]

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Cite error: The named reference AP was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ ^a ^b "CORI Research Analysis" (PDF). CORI. 21 September 2009.
^ "The Gulf: Fraternal Drubbing". Time. 4 July 1988. Retrieved 7 May 2019. Baghdad denied any involvement in the battle. At week's end, however, Iraq did claim that its forces had recaptured the oil-rich Majnoun islands east of the Tigris River, where Iranian defenders had been entrenched since 1984.
^ Piazza, James A. (October 1994). "The Democratic Islamic Republic of Iran in Exile". Digest of Middle East Studies. 3 (4): 9–43. doi:10.1111/j.1949-3606.1994.tb00535.x. On June 19, 1988, the NLA launched its offensive entitled Chetel Setareh or "40 Stars" in which twenty-two organized brigades of Mojahedin recaptured the city of Mehran, which the regime had wrested from Iraqi control after the Mojahedin had set up its "provisional government" there. The Mojahedin claimed that absolutely no Iraqi soldiers participated in this operation, and Iraqi Culture and Information Minister, Latif Nusayyif Jasim, later denied that Iraq had deployed air units to help the NLA or had used chemical weapons to drive the Islamic Republic's troops from Mehran.
^ Razoux, Pierre (2015). The Iran-Iraq War. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674915718.

[AP-1] Cite error: The named reference AP was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[cori-2] "CORI Research Analysis" (PDF). CORI. 21 September 2009.

[3] "The Gulf: Fraternal Drubbing". Time. 4 July 1988. Retrieved 7 May 2019. Baghdad denied any involvement in the battle. At week's end, however, Iraq did claim that its forces had recaptured the oil-rich Majnoun islands east of the Tigris River, where Iranian defenders had been entrenched since 1984.

[4] Piazza, James A. (October 1994). "The Democratic Islamic Republic of Iran in Exile". Digest of Middle East Studies. 3 (4): 9–43. doi:10.1111/j.1949-3606.1994.tb00535.x. On June 19, 1988, the NLA launched its offensive entitled Chetel Setareh or "40 Stars" in which twenty-two organized brigades of Mojahedin recaptured the city of Mehran, which the regime had wrested from Iraqi control after the Mojahedin had set up its "provisional government" there. The Mojahedin claimed that absolutely no Iraqi soldiers participated in this operation, and Iraqi Culture and Information Minister, Latif Nusayyif Jasim, later denied that Iraq had deployed air units to help the NLA or had used chemical weapons to drive the Islamic Republic's troops from Mehran.

[5] Razoux, Pierre (2015). The Iran-Iraq War. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674915718.

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