On 9 January 1987,[1] at the beginning of the Battle of Shalamcheh, in the midst of the Iran–Iraq War, the Iranian Behbehan Battalion came under a heavy aerial chemical bomb attack by Iraqi forces.

The Fadjr Battalion soldiers, numbering around 300, took refuge in an open-air shelter on the side of the road.

Due to the high volume of mustard gas that the bombs contained, many soldiers were poisoned, some losing their lives in the few hours after the attacks.

[citation needed] From the over 300 soldiers present at the time of the attack, 90 lost their lives as a result of the chemical bombs within a few days.

[citation needed] The most recent veteran to lose his life due to exposure to mustard gas at Behbahan was Enaytollah Nasseri, who died in late 2009 in a hospital in Tehran, suffering from a collapsed lung.