- This article or section should be merged with Bloody Valentine War
In the Cosmic Era timeline of the fictional anime series Gundam Seed, the Battle of JOSH-A (also known as Operation Spitbreak) was ZAFT's plan to take the JOSH-A Earth Alliance Atlantic Federation HQ in October of C.E. 71, decapitating OMNI Enforcer and bringing the Earth Alliance to its knees in one stroke.
The plan was initially sold to the ZAFT Supreme Council by Patrick Zala as an assault to take the Porta Panama mass driver, which was the only remaining mass driver spaceport under the Alliance's control. (The other three Alliance spaceports fell to ZAFT earlier in the war, and the Kaguya mass driver was under the control of Orb.) Such an attack would sever the Alliance space forces from their support base on Earth, allowing ZAFT to easily take control of space. However, once the attack began, ZAFT forces were notified that the target was not Panama, but JOSH-A. The remainder of the council was horrified by this betrayal of their trust (they would have never authorized an assault on JOSH-A), but were unable to do anything to counter Zala's gambit.
Unfortunately, Zala had made one key mistake - he had divulged the entirity of Operation Spitbreak to ZAFT special forces commander Rau Le Creuset, who, unbeknownst to Zala, had his own agenda. La Creuset proceeded to disclose the target of Operation Spitbreak to Blue Cosmos leader Multa Azrael, who then arranged to use the ZAFT attack to his advantage - he had high ranking Atlantic Federation officers who were Blue Cosmos sympathizers quietly transfer off JOSH-A personnel who were also sympathetic, leaving as a defense force the Eurasian Federation forces as well as the Atlantic Federation battleship Archangel, whose consorting with the Coordinator Kira Yamato had made them tainted in the eyes of Blue Cosmos. However, their defense of JOSH-A was to only be a ruse - hidden in the heart of JOSH-A was the Cyclops self-destruct system, which was to be detonated once ZAFT breached the main gates. Thus, Azrael would kill two birds with one stone - the loss of the Eurasian soldiers would make the Atlantic Federation ascendant in OMNI Enforcer, allowing Blue Cosmos to engage in the extermination of all Coordinators, as well as mortally wounding ZAFT's combat arm.
Yet, two things would occur that would change the fate of the battle. First, the betrayal felt by the ZAFT Supreme Council ultimately led Lacus Clyne to make the decision to give to Kira Yamato (who had been recovering under her care) one of ZAFT's new nuclear powered mobile suits, the ZGMF-X10A Freedom Gundam. Kira proceeded to take the Freedom to Earth, arriving at JOSH-A soon after LT Mu La Flaga had notified LT Murrue Ramius of the treachery of Blue Cosmos. Ramius and Kira then gave the order for all forces - Alliance and ZAFT - to clear the blast zone of the Cyclops System, and began a withdrawal from the battlefield. Under the cover fire of the Freedom's HiMAT mode, the Archangel cleared the battlefield safely, and then proceeded to travel to the United Emirates of Orb. Sadly, neither the Eurasian forces nor ZAFT were as lucky - the Eurasian contingent was destroyed, as was half of the ZAFT force. In addition, the GAT-X102 Duel Gundam was severely damaged in the battle by the Freedom.
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