Khorramshahr is an important city with 50,000 decapitated palms. The city is symbol of resistance at the days when Iraqi Saddam Hussein's regime started incursion into the neighboring country.
Following the invasion on September 22, 1980, the Iranian people stood against the occupiers. The Baath regime in Iraq was of the opinion that the Iranians who were living in border areas will not stand against the invasion, but their resistance pushed back the invaders.
The Iranian fighters could defend the city over 34 days and lost their lives to stop advancement of the Iraqi forces; however, the invaders with sophisticated weapons could invade the city on October 25, 1980.
Brave Iranian soldiers carried out the great operation of Beit-ul-Moghaddas in three phases. They succeeded in liberating Khorramshahr on May 24, 1982. Due to the outstanding bravery of the Iranian soldiers, the city was referred to as the Khunin Shahr (the City of Blood).
The liberation of Khorramshahr played a key role in later political and military developments, which altered regional equations and showed that Iran is a new power in the West Asia region.
The victory also changed Iran's strategic position during the eight-year war with Iraq.
In a message on the occasion of liberation of Khorramshahr, Imam Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Revolution, said that the Almighty God had extended assistance in liberating the Iranian border port city from the occupation of enemy’s forces.
The liberation of Khorramshahr was so important that the Western media were forced to acknowledge the big achievement by the Iranians. Financial Times reported that Iraq's defeat in Khorramshahr and the captivity of thousands of Iraqi soldiers by the Iranian forces are a catastrophic defeat and humiliation for the Iraqi army. The French newspaper Libération wrote that following the retaking of Khorramshahr, the US, Europe and certain Arab states proposed some initiatives to terminate Iraq-Iran war.
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