The Iran-Iraq War was one of the bloodiest conflicts of the 20th Century and accidentally created the current nightmare of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. There have been many books on the conflict but this is the first detailed military history using materials from both sides, as well as materials obtained from US Intelligence circles and British Governmental archives. It provides a unique insight into a war which began through miscalculation and rapidly escalated into the longest conventional conflict in the post-Second World War era. Part 4 in this mini-series covers the warfare between Iran and Iraq on the Central and Northern Fronts. Difficult terrain made it problematic for either side to assemble overwhelming superiority. Following initial Iraqi attacks that seized some territory, the Iranians began gradually nibbling back until achieving some success in the center, in 1982. Subsequently, the Central Front saw only minor conventional battles until Iraq launched several major blows in 1988. In the north, fighting primarily revolved around several Kurdish insurgencies in northern Iraq, and culminated in the horror of the Halabcheh gas attack. The final campaign of the war saw Iraq-supported Iranian émigrés launching a spectacular, but also a swiftly-crushed, invasion of their homeland.
Cooper, Tom: - "Tom Cooper is an Austrian aerial warfare analyst and historian. Following a career in worldwide transportation business - during which he established a network of contacts in the Middle East and Africa - he moved into narrow-focus analysis and writing on small, little-known air forces and conflicts, about which he has collected extensive archives. This has resulted in specialization in such Middle Eastern air forces as of those of Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, plus various African and Asian air forces. Except for authoring and co-authoring more than 30 books - including about a dozen of titles for Helion's @War series - and over 1000 articles, Cooper is a regular correspondent for multiple defense-related publications."
Hooton, E. R.: - E. R. Hooton is a successful retired defense journalist, including acting as a Jane's yearbook editor. He is the author of more than a dozen military history books ranging from the Balkans Wars 1912-1913, air operations over the Western Front 1916-1918, the breaking of the Hindenburg Line 1918, the Red Army 1937-1941, air operations 1939-1945 and the Communist Chinese victory of 1945-1951.
Nadimi, Farzin: - Farzin Nadimi is a writer and researcher of the Middle Eastern and Persian Gulf defense and security affairs, with a focus on Iran-Iraq War military history, energy security and geopolitics, economic warfare, and oil and gas industries. He has a Master's degree in War Studies from King's College London and a PhD in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Manchester. He lives in Washington, DC.
