 [64] This was Iran's long-awaited plan to take the war inside Iraq on a grand scale.The Iranians wanted to penetrate and capture the cities of al-Shabeeb and al-Amarah, and to reach the highways linking Baghdad down to Amarah and further down to Basra.In the south, a massive Iranian force of two infantry and two armoured divisions, three border guard regiments, an airborne regiment, a Basij division, and two artillery battalions attempted to isolate Basra from the rest of Iraq.