The target The
H-3 Air Base consists of three parts: H-3 "Main" (also known as Al-Walid, ), H-3 Northwest, and H-3 Southwest. It is located near
Al Walid town close to the Baghdad–Amman highway in the
Al Anbar desert in western Iraq, near the Jordanian border and 1,000 km from the Iranian border. It was erected to secure the western borders of Iraq and was also used in the
Yom Kippur War in 1973. According to Iraqi sources, during the
Iran–Iraq War, it was used as a support airbase for the
Iraqi Air Force and housed no more than a few transportation squadrons and a squadron of
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21s, as well as retired
Hawker Hunters. The IRIAF had received "credible" reports that Iraq – reinforced by the arrival of large amounts of ammunition and spare parts from
Egypt, as well as by the delivery of
Mirage F1s from
France and
Tupolev Tu-22 bombers from the Soviet Union As part of
Saddam Hussein's attempts to carry out a successful offensive against Iran on the northern front between 12 and 22 March 1981, Iraq fired two
9K52 Luna-M surface-to-surface rockets against the cities of
Dezful and
Ahvaz. Within days after this attack, commanders of the 31st and 32nd Tactical Fighter Wing at the
Shahrokhi Air Base (TAB 3, near
Hamadan) planned a counter-attack to degrade the Iraqi Air Force's capabilities.
The attack Being almost 1,500 kilometres from the Iranian fighters at Shahrokhi Air Base, H-3 was out of range and if choosing a direct route, the Iranian aircraft would have had to fly over
Baghdad and perform
aerial refueling twice in Iraqi airspace, including once near Baghdad, which was heavily fortified by Iraqi air defence sites. The operation began at 10:30am of 4 April 1981. A formation of eight F-4 Phantoms (including six F-4Es and two F-4Ds), accompanied by two airborne reserves, departed from
Hamedan Air Base (TAB 3) and proceeded towards
Urmia Lake and then, after refueling in friendly airspace, crossed into Iraq, while the two reserve aircraft returned. A pair of F-14 Tomcats patrolled the area hours before and after the strike began to counter any interception attempts by the Iraqi Air Force. Meanwhile, three
Northrop F-5Es from
Tabriz Air Base (
TFB.2) performed diversionary attacks on
Hurriya Air Base near
Kirkuk, with unknown results, but certainly distracting Iraqis away from the Phantoms. The C-130H was flying near the Iran–Iraq border. Some time earlier, the two tankers, which already had been sent to
Syria, had taken off from a Syrian airport, and then clandestinely diverted from international commercial corridors in total radio silence, while apparently being bound for Iran. Flying at a very low altitude over southern
Turkey and eastern Syria, they crossed mountainous northwestern Iraq and finally joined the Phantoms over the western Iraqi desert. Each Phantom refueled four times from the tankers, at an altitude of 300 ft (100 m), which was risky and far below any safety standards
Casualties The IRIAF claimed it destroyed a total of three
Antonov An-12BP transports, a
Tupolev Tu-16 bomber, four
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21s, five
Sukhoi Su-20/22s, eight
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23s, two
Dassault Mirage F1EQs (delivered only weeks earlier) and four helicopters, as well as damaging eleven others beyond repair, including two Tu-16 bombers. Two Iraqi pilots and fourteen personnel were killed, together with three Egyptian and an East German officer, while 19 Iraqis, four Egyptians, and two Jordanians were badly injured. This strike degraded Iraq's capability to retaliate. According to Iranian intelligence, prior to the attack there were at least two squadrons equipped with ten
Tupolev Tu-22B and at least six
Tupolev Tu-16 heavy bombers, as well as two other units with MiG-23BNs and Su-20s, which were hidden in the hangars. This has been disputed by Iraqi officials. Iraqi sources claimed that only a single MiG-21 was damaged in the attack; that the damaged hangars were empty at the time of the attack; and that its Tu-22s and Tu-16s were stationed at
Tammuz Airbase due to the ongoing war with Iran. Iraq claimed that the bombers were stationed at Tammuz until they were retired from the Iraqi Air Force in the late 1980s, and then were bombed in 1991 during the
Gulf War. Iraq denied losses of any Mirage F1s, claiming that all were located in an airbase built specially for them at the request of the French government. The Mirage airbase, called
Saddam Airbase, was located approximately 300 kilometers north of Baghdad. Iraqi air defense command later claimed to have detected the formation coming from the direction of Syria en route to the target, and their radar followed Phantoms for some 67 minutes, although the Iranians achieved total surprise. ==In popular culture==