Word: abadan
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...boxers, unable to land a knockout punch but also unwilling to call it quits. As it had for weeks, the struggle raged over control of the crucial Shatt al Arab waterway. After pummeling the ancient port city of Khorramshahr, the Iraqis laid siege to the Iranian refinery center of Abadan. The Iraqi advance was slowed by the fierce resistance of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, an Islamic militia passionately supportive of the ideals and fulminations of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. Meanwhile, the surprisingly effective Iranian air force hit back at the Iraqis with strafing missions and bombing attacks on at least four...
Though a breakthrough continued to elude them, Iraqi forces were tightening a noose around the ports of Khorramshahr and Abadan on the bank of the Shatt al Arab waterway. Buttressed by batteries of 130-mm artillery, an estimated 9,000 Iraqi infantrymen, using three pontoon bridges, succeeded in crossing the Karun River. Their military command declared it "Iraq's largest amphibious assault ever." From that bridgehead Iraqi tanks fanned southward to surround both Khorramshahr and Abadan. The Iranians charged that the Iraqis bombarded both cities with artillery and with surface-to-surface missiles. Eyewitnesses said the carnage among civilians...
...Iraqi artillery barrages were primarily designed to drive out the civilian defenders who have backed up the Iranian armed forces with guerrilla operations. The bombardment, in fact, set off a mass exodus from the Khorramshahr-Abadan area. More than 300,000 people sought refuge in the small town of Shadegan, 20 miles to the northeast. Late in the week, Iraqi forces captured Abadan's radio station, which is almost two miles outside the city, but it was not immediately clear whether the Iraqis would choose to lay a prolonged siege around the burning city and thus spare themselves infantry...
Iraq also claimed the capture of the main bridge linking Khorramshahr with Abadan, nine miles to the south. "Abadan is as good as fallen," the Iraqi communique said...
...Iraqi drive was aimed at three principal targets: the oil-refining center of Abadan, Khuzistan's capital of Ahwaz, and the important communications junction of Dezful, 150 miles north of Khorramshahr. Outraged Iranian officials announced in midweek that Iraq had fired four Soviet-supplied surface-to-surface missiles on Dezful and neighboring Andimeshk, causing heavy casualties. Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Raja'i, calling the Iraqi action "insane," said that most of the 170 people killed and 300 wounded were civilians. Each of the missiles has a range of about 55 miles-approximately the distance from the Iraqi...