Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – December 5, 1987

I woke up during the call to prayer and did not sleep again. Last night I had mistakenly unplugged the electric heater while sleeping instead of the phone and I was a bit cold.

Mr. [Jamal [Sadatian], the person in charge of my office [asked Mr. Moiri about issues related to France. They said that France has paid the stipulated installment - three hundred million dollars - and it has arrived, but they asked us not to announce it before them, because Jacques Chirac [French Prime Minister] is under pressure and it turned out that he received a vote of confidence from the French Parliament in this regard, which also shows its importance.

The issue is also a sign of opposition pressure.

At seven o'clock in the morning, we left for Siri Island with the friendship plane. We arrived at the headquarters at eight o'clock. The navy of the army gave the necessary information and then we visited the defense positions of embankments, trenches, anti-aircraft, radar and tanks, and then we visited the oil export dock.

Last year, the Iraqis fired a missile at the pier, but it was launched. They said that 37,000 barrels of oil come to the island from sea wells every day, and it takes a few days for it to accumulate to the size of a large ship, then it is loaded. Ships with a capacity of three hundred thousand tons can be loaded there. They took a good initiative to install hose pipes instead of loading arms that were damaged by rockets, thus reducing the vulnerability.

We visited the fishing cold house, construction garden, water well and the beaches of the island. The surface of the island is arable and there are several surface wells with brackish water, but because people have migrated, no one is farming. It is a big island of about 33 square kilometers. It has a good runway. There is a risk of the US occupying the island because of these facilities. We made recommendations for a stronger defense. The responsibility of Siri Island is the responsibility of the Navy, and troops from the IRGC and the Army are also present. We watched a Chumao tank shoot; It was not bad.

At noon, we flew to Abu Musa Island. In the guest house of the governor of the island, prayer, lunch and rest were performed. I went to the naval headquarters by ship, they showed the island's facilities and defense facilities, and then we visited the island's pier and port.

The Corps has a special dock for operations and control there and has good shelters. Arabs control Sharjah. We visited the border gendarmerie post and IRGC radar and Jadah neighborhood that was assigned to Basij, and the ring road and beaches and defense positions of the navy and a 106 rifle. The state of defense of the island is good and Jihad is active for fortifications and combat engineering works. They complain about the governorship and the governor also complains about the military and other organizations. The island is almost militarized.

We visited the Arab neighborhood of Sharjah. About six hundred people from Sharjah live here. It seems that the [Sharjah] government gives them the right to be here without doing anything, just to be there, because they claim ownership of the island. They get a lot of money and they are not in a bad situation. We talked to some of them. We came to the airport. The governor said the situation.

In the evening, we flew to Bandar Abbas. We spent the night at the Navy Guest House. We had dinner with the commanders and pilots. Bathing and resting, listening to foreign and domestic news and writing diaries.

We talked with Dr. Rouhani about future operations. We did not consider the desired operation of the IRGC to be sufficient for the existing war situation. We are going to go to the front next week. It was reported that one of our F-4 planes was shot down today.