Word: abadan
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...cockpit of superpower rivalry. "Whether it has been declared or not," said Iraqi Defense Minister Adnan Khairallah early on, "it is in fact war." The struggle escalated quickly and as it did, spread to key oil facilities on both sides-Basra, Kirkuk and Mosul in Iraq, Abadan and Kharg island in Iran. With thick black smoke pluming from bombed tank farms and refineries, petroleum-consuming nations around the globe anxiously calculated and then recalculated the implications. Said one U.S. official in tallying up the damage: "Once oil installations became fair game, the stakes became much higher for everyone...
...about the same time the Iraqis sent their bombers against Iranian oil facilities across the Shatt al Arab at Abadan and farther south against Kharg island, where 14 tankers at a time can load crude. At Abadan, one of the biggest refineries in the world (587,000 bbl.-per-day capacity) and the principal source of fuel for Iran's domestic needs, flames and smoke shot skyward. "There are going to be a lot of cold Iranians this winter as a result," said a U.S. diplomat monitoring the fighting. In Tehran, the government decreed that no gasoline would...
Meantime, Iraqi troops and armor crossed the frontier in force. The invaders mounted a multipronged drive aimed at Abadan, the nearby port of Khorramshahr, Ahwaz and Dezful, a vital pumping station on the Abadan-Tehran pipeline, and to the north around Kermanshah. The heaviest fighting, reported TIME Correspondent William Drozdiak, was around Khorramshahr, which was being pounded from three sides by Iraqi tank and artillery fire. Making his way through dust clouds raised by the armor, Drozdiak bumped into an Iraqi general, who gave him an impromptu briefing: "There is terrible fighting around Khorramshahr. Unfortunately...