They became familiar with using the basic command and operational terms of the Iraqi army. This, of course, is what enabled the Iraqi army to use the Mujahidin as an instrument to help crush the Kurdish uprising during the Morvarid operation of March 1991. . |
A Testing Time for the Mujahidin
Yet as soon as the war with Iraq ended, Rajavi launched a desperate and foolhardy bid for power. He ordered the NLA to attack Iran with disastrous results. The Forouq-e Javidan operation is examined in the next chapter. The point here is that even when they had their chance to do what Rajavi had promised, the NLA failed. Since that time there has been little scope for believing that they could even repeat the exercise let alone succeed. Half the army was killed in the operation. It took years for the members to recover their morale and capacity. Even when they did, Rajavi made a decision in 1991, which was to seal the fate of the NLA and condemn it to little more than a terrorist group.
For this purpose, they moved some of their own service, repair centers and headquarters into the Mujahidin camp. The Mujahidin became more familiar with real army life as a result and became so much a part of it that it was acceptable for the Iraqi army to communicate with them as a military division. They gave up their amateur transceivers and used proper military equipment. They became familiar with using the basic command and operational terms of the Iraqi army. This, of course, is what enabled the Iraqi army to use the Mujahidin as an instrument to help crush the Kurdish uprising during the Morvarid operation of March 1991. .
The military parade of 1991 was the graduation ceremony of this division. In this parade, NLA personnel traversed along a wide purpose built boulevard, passing the observers in the middle. At the end of the street, vehicles were waiting to take the crews of the tanks and other vehicles back to the beginning of the street for them to come down again with more tanks and armored vehicles. The NLA had acquired a whole army load of equipment from Saddam, but hadn’t enough people to show it off, particularly to show women on tanks
The Gulf War in 1991, proved a testing time for the Mujahidin in many ways. Politically, they estranged themselves from their erstwhile supporters in the West by choosing to remain under Iraqi hegemony. Militarily it was also a disaster. After the war ended, Saddam Hussein saw his opportunity to crush the ensuing Kurdish rebellion in the north of Iraq. The Mujahidin army was also mobilized by Saddam to crush the Kurds. They used their tanks to raze Kurdish villages and kill civilians.