Talaiyeh is a dry area at the far southwestern edge of Dasht-e Azadegan, west of the 45-kilometer mark on the Ahvaz– Khorramshahr Road. It was captured by the Iraqis in the early days of the Iran-Iraq War and later freed in 1982 during Operation Beit al-Muqaddas.

The name Talaiyeh comes from the local word “ Talayeh”, meaning border or boundary. Originally, it refers to a strip of land that sits between two different types of terrain.⁠[1]

Talaiyeh is part of the Hoveyzeh district and the Bani Saleh rural district, at the southern tip of Dasht-e Azadegan. It borders Iraq to the south and west, Kooshk to the east, and Fath intersection and Barzegar crossroads to the north. To the west of Talaiyeh lies the Hoor al-Hoveyzeh (Hawizeh Marshes), while the other three sides are open desert. The Iran-Iraq border here makes a sharp right-angle turn, known locally as the “ Daal-e Talaiyeh”. In mid-summer, temperatures in this region sometimes reach over 50 ° C. The ground is flat and covered with dust and salt residue. When it rains and the marsh overflows, large parts of Talaiyeh end up underwater, which turns the area into marshland for certain months of the year.⁠[2]

The history of warfare in Talaiyeh goes back to World War II. Back in Reza Shah’ s time, there were about eleven or thirteen armored personnel carriers and tanks in the area, which the British bombed.⁠[3]

The old and new Talaiyeh border posts sit right on the frontier, past Tarazi and Kooshk, near the Majnoon Islands. In effect, this area marks the line between dry land and the marsh. Even before the Iran-Iraq War officially started, the Iraqis were already active in this region; they fired at border posts, built bunkers across from them, deployed troops and tanks right in front of the old Talaiyeh post, flew reconnaissance missions over the area, and detained local fishermen.⁠[4]

At the start of the Iran-Iraq War, the Neshveh– Talaiyeh– Jofeir axis was one of the main routes the Iraqi army used to invade Khuzestan. The Iraqis came through this corridor to push toward Hamidiyeh and Ahvaz. On September 23, 1980, Iraq’ s 5th Mechanized Division defeated Iranian border forces and captured Talaiyeh. They then fortified their positions with the best available obstacles such as berms, minefields, booby traps, concrete bunkers, barbed wire, and triangular earthworks.⁠[5]

During the second phase of Operation Beit al-Muqaddas, on May 6, 1982, Iranian forces advanced about twenty kilometers from the border up to Shalamcheh and Zeyd. On May 8, the Iraqis launched their fiercest counterattack, which lasted from 8 AM to 5 PM. The Iranian resistance that day pushed the Iraqis back to within twelve kilometers of Basra. On May 9, the Iraqis withdrew from the area and fell back to Talaiyeh. Meanwhile, forces from the Quds Headquarters were sent to Talaiyeh to further push back the Iraqis and set up positions there. Unable to hold their ground, the Iraqi troops retreated, and large parts of Talaiyeh were retaken that same day without a fight.⁠[6]

After Operation Beit al-Muqaddas, the Iraqi army decided to strengthen its defensive lines across all fronts, tailoring its approach to each sector. In Talaiyeh, because it borders the Hoor al-Hoveyzeh, they created massive flooding and built obstacles, ambush bunkers, and multiple berms throughout the area.⁠[7]

Talaiyeh was a key axis in operations Kheibar and Badr, and it was crucial to holding the Majnoon Islands throughout the war. Capturing Talaiyeh meant securing Iran’ s advance into the marsh. Operation Kheibar began on February 22, 1984, with the goal of crossing the marsh and threatening Basra from the north. The operation was launched along two independent axes: Hoor al-Hoveyzeh and Zeyd. Iranian forces had to push through this area to reach the North and South Majnoon Islands and their facilities— power towers, radio and TV booster towers, paper plants, and oil roads. In the second phase of Kheibar, Iraqi artillery fire was so intense on Talaiyeh that dozens of indirect-fire weapons, including cannons and mortars, would hit the same spot at once. As the Iranian forces put it, they “ plowed” the ground of Talaiyeh. Estimates put the volume of Iraqi shelling in this area at tens of thousands of artillery rounds, Katyusha rockets, and mortar shells. Because Talaiyeh was so critical to the entire operation, Iranian military commanders constantly stressed the need for the forces to hold their ground.⁠[8]

After two weeks of heavy fighting and Iraqi chemical attacks that led to   the martyrdom of a number of Iranian troops and commanders, including Muhammad Ebrahim Hemmat, commander of the 27th Muhammad Rasulullah (pbuh) Division, and Hamid Bakeri, deputy commander of the 31st Ashura Division, the Iranian forces, acting on Imam Khomeini’ s call, managed to hold the Majnoon Islands.⁠[9] Hussain Kharrazi, commander of the 14th Imam Hussain (as) Division, and Ahmad Kazemi, commander of the Najaf Ashraf Brigade, were both injured in this operation.⁠[10]

Even though Iran had officially accepted UN Resolution 598 on June 25, 1988, the Iraqi army launched a heavy attack against the Talaiyeh, Kooshk, and Hussainiyeh station axes in an attempt to capture Ahvaz. But Iranian fighters held firm, and the Iraqis were forced to retreat with heavy losses.⁠[11]

In the first half of 1993, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps units that had engaged the enemy in Talaiyeh during the Iran-Iraq War returned to the area and formed search-and-recovery teams. They found the remains of many martyrs.⁠[12] Not long after, a Hussainiyeh was built and named after Hazrat Abbas (as), where large numbers of martyrs’ bodies were found. Five unidentified martyrs are buried in this place. This memorial is located eight kilometers west of the old Talaiyeh border post, at the far southwestern edge of the border, about 300 meters from Shuhada intersection. Although oil exploration has changed the landscape somewhat, the defensive berms and earthworks from the war are still visible south and west of the memorial.⁠[13]