Al-Faw Peninsula

The Faw Peninsula (Arabic: شبه جزيرة الفاو‎‎; also transliterated as Fao or Fawr) is a marshy region adjoining the Persian Gulf in the extreme southeast of Iraq, between and to the southeast of the cities of Basra (Iraq) and Abadan (Iran).

It is the site of a number of important oil installations, most notably Iraq's two main oil tanker terminals: Khor al-Amaya and Mina al-Bakr. Its chief importance is its strategic location, controlling access to the Shatt al-Arab waterway (and thus access to the port of Basra).

The only significant town on the peninsula is Al-Faw, a fishing town and port which comprised Iraq's main naval base under the regime of Saddam Hussein. The peninsula is otherwise lightly inhabited with few civilian buildings other than a few fishermen's huts.

During the Iran–Iraq War in the 1980s, al-Faw was bitterly contested due to its strategic location at the head of the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway, and was the site of many large-scale battles. On February 11, 1986, the Iranians capitalized on the weakness of the Iraqi defences located at the southernmost tip of the peninsula by launching a surprise attack against Iraqi troops defending al-Faw. The Iraqi units in charge of the defences consisted mostly of poorly trained Iraqi Popular Army conscripts that collapsed when they were suddenly attacked by Iranian Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guard) forces.

It marked the first time that the Iranians had successfully invaded and occupied Iraqi territory. The Iranians defeated several Iraqi Republican Guard counter-offensives and managed to hang on to their foothold.

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