Word: abadan
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...between Iraq and Iran raged into its seventh week, there were few signs that a decisive victory or a cease-fire would soon end the fighting. After seizing control of Khorramshahr on the disputed Shatt al Arab waterway, Iraqi troops mercilessly pounded the besieged refinery city of Abadan with artillery and tank fire. But fierce resistance by Iranian army troops, Revolutionary Guards and urban guerrillas halted the invaders at a key bridge over the Karun River, north of the embattled city. As the Iraqis shelled other major towns in oil-rich Khuzistan province, Iran struck back at enemy positions with...
...outskirts of Basra on the Shatt al Arab estuary. The Iraqis were also proceeding toward one of their key tactical goals: cutting off most of the supply of oil from Khuzistan to Iran's heartland by severing pipelines and inflicting heavy damage on the huge refinery at Abadan, which will take years to rebuild. As part of this strategy, the Iraqis have repeatedly shelled Dezful, nexus for most of the oil pipelines running northward from Khuzistan. The Tehran government has already been forced to ration gasoline and heating oil, and reserves of jet fuel are dwindling...
Radio Tehran contested the Iraqi claims, insisting that Revolutionary Guards still held key quarters of Khorramshahr. But Iran admitted that the major refinery city of Abadan, ten miles to the south, had been totally surrounded by Iraqi forces seeking to starve out its last defenders. The Iraqis reportedly blew up sections of the main pipeline linking Abadan to Tehran, thereby depriving Iran of most of its domestic fuel supply. The Iranian Oil Ministry imposed a drastic rationing of home heating oil, following earlier restrictions on gasoline. The fall of Khorramshahr gave Iraqi President Saddam Hussein his first major victory...
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...