The Iranian military operation was successfully led by Lieutenant General Hossein Hassani Sa'di where Iran won the battle and also repelled the ensuing Iraqi Counterattack.

However, Iran faced technical setbacks with massive economic and military sanctions in place against the country.

Nevertheless, they were unable to capture cities in central and southern Iraq due to a combination of poor logistics, shortages of armor, and Iraqi firepower[citation needed].

While the war in the south had bogged down into a stalemate, Iran began focusing on Kurdistan, which was in a mountainous region in northern Iraq.

Being mountainous and thus unsuitable for armored warfare, Iran had launched multiple attacks starting from late 1987 to early 1988.

While Iran would not capture any major cities, with the help of the Peshmerga's guerilla warfare, using area denial tactics, large swaths of Kurdistan were rendered outside of Iraqi government control.

The Iraqis responded by launching 720 chemical artillery rockets and 200 chemical artillery shells which resulted in the Iranian 55th parachute division taking heavy losses and wiping out of the 84th infantry division, forcing the Iranians to call off the offensive.