---
title: 'Payam: Ay Iraniyan (Message: O Iranians): Iraqi armed forces notice with image of Imam Ali'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/iraq-notice-to-iranians-imam-ali-1980/
description: Persian-language leaflet addressed to Iranian troops, with a portrait captioned as Imam Ali beside the text.
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

[![Payam: Ay Iraniyan (Message: O Iranians): Iraqi armed forces notice with image of Imam Ali](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/iraq-notice-to-iranians-imam-ali-1980.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/iraq-notice-to-iranians-imam-ali-1980.jpg)

# Payam: Ay Iraniyan (Message: O Iranians): Iraqi armed forces notice with image of Imam Ali

Persian-language leaflet addressed to Iranian troops, with a portrait captioned as Imam Ali beside the text. It presents Iraq as the keeper of the Imams' shrines, warns that God's and the Prophet's household's wrath will pursue any attacker in this world and the next, and tells the reader to surrender in order to survive.

- **Date:** 1980
- **Period:** [Cold War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=cold-war)
- **Made by:** Armed Forces of Iraq (notice signed 'Iraqi armed forces')
- **Region:** [Middle East and North Africa](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=middle-east-north-africa)
- **Country:** [Iraq](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=iraq)
- **Medium:** [Leaflet](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=leaflet)
- **Issuer type:** [Military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=military)
- **Regime:** [Ba'athist Iraq](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=ba-athist-iraq)
- **Leader:** [Saddam Hussein](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=saddam-hussein)
- **Audience:** [Enemy forces](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=enemy-forces)
- **Purpose:** [Mobilize or secure compliance](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=mobilize-comply)
- **Themes:** [War and the military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=war-military), [Religion](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=religion)
- **Event:** [Iran Iraq War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=iran-iraq-war)
- **Techniques:** [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/) [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/)
- **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- **Source:** [Wikimedia Commons (scan credited to sajed.ir)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:An_Iraqi_notice_for_Propaganda_against_Iranian_forces.jpg), retrieved September 29, 2026
- **Rights:** Public domain per Commons (PD-Iraq); Iraq has no U.S. copyright relations (Circular 38A) Iraqi armed forces, via sajed.ir and Wikimedia Commons.

## Text on the object

Original (Persian) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
بسم الله الرحمن الرحیم
پیام
ای ایرانیان

کشوری که مراقد ائمهٔ اطهار علی و حسین و عباس (علیهم السلام) را به آغوش میگیرد، کسی در آن ستم نمی‌بیند، و همیشه ارجمند است. و همچنین هرکسی به آن پناه بیارد مکرم می‌شود.
عراقیان نوادگان آل بیت اطهار پناهنده را به سفر برای هر کشوری که خود آن را میخواهد مخیّر می‌کنند، ولی ما در کمینگاه هستیم روبروی هر تجاوزگری به سرزمین عراق وارد بشود، سپس غضب خداوند متعال و آل بیت در دنیا و آخرت وی را تعقیب خواهدکرد.
لذا برحذر باشید، و بر علیه عراق امام علی (علیه السلام) حمله نکنید.. خودرا تسلیم دهید، شاید سالم بمانید.

- نیروهای مسلح عراق -

[caption under the portrait, small print: عراق در پناه امیرالمؤمنین علی بن ابی‌طالب علیه‌السلام و آل... — remainder illegible]
```

English translation (machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader)

```
In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.
Message
O Iranians:

A country that embraces the shrines of the pure Imams Ali, Hussein and Abbas (peace be upon them): no one sees injustice in it, and it is always honoured, and likewise whoever takes refuge in it is honoured.
The Iraqis, descendants of the pure Household [of the Prophet], give the refugee the choice to travel to whichever country he wants, but we are lying in wait facing every aggressor who enters the land of Iraq; then the wrath of God Almighty and of the Household will pursue him in this world and the next.
Therefore be warned, and do not attack the Iraq of Imam Ali (peace be upon him).. Surrender yourselves, perhaps you will remain safe.

- The Armed Forces of Iraq -

[caption under the portrait, small print: Iraq is under the protection of the Commander of the Faithful Ali ibn Abi Talib, peace be upon him, and the Household... — remainder illegible]
```

Read from a 937 px scan; the body text is clear, the caption under the portrait is only partly legible. Spelling and punctuation follow the leaflet. Translation is a machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader.

[← "Right to Life" demonstration, at White House and Capitol](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/right-to-life-abortion-is-murder-1978/) [Ya abna' al-jaysh al-'iraqi (O Sons of the Iraqi Army): Iranian Army leaflet →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/iran-army-leaflet-to-iraqi-army-1981/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [豬叫取胎圖 (Picture of the Pig Sect Extracting a Foetus), from Reverently Obeying the Sacred Edict: A Complete Picture Gallery to Repel Heterodoxy](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/pig-cry-taking-foetus-hunan-1891/) (1891 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Colour woodblock caricature depicting foreign Christians as members of a 'pig' sect and showing them cutting a foetus from a woman; violence against a woman and derision of Christianity.
- [The Radical Programme, No. 4: Dismemberment of the Empire (Gladstone & Co. auction India), St Stephen's Review Presentation Cartoon](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/radical-programme-selling-india-st-stephens-review-1891/) (Oct 31, 1891 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating)
- [En posesión de su presa (In Possession of Its Prey)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/en-posesion-de-su-presa-el-diablo-1894/) (Jun 2, 1894 · Fear appeal)
- [劉永福懸賞抓拿日本奸細告示 (Liu Yongfu's notice offering rewards for capturing Japanese spies), Taiwan](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/liu-yongfu-reward-notice-japanese-spies-1895/) (1895 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Sífilis: Curación absoluta y radical en el Sanatorio para sifilíticos (Syphilis: Absolute and Radical Cure at the Sanatorium for Syphilitics)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sifilis-sanatorio-abreu-1900/) (1900 · Fear appeal)