Word: ahwaz
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...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...
...provincial capital of Ahwaz, 60 miles north, where Iranian defenders with strong air support were keeping massed ranks of Iraqi tanks and artillery guns pinned down 14 miles outside the city...
...finally, in Dezful, a key military base and oil station, where the Iranians were successfully frustrating an Iraqi bid to vanquish the town and prepare for a possible pincer assault on Ahwaz...
...four days had nurtured a languid mood among the Iraqi soldiers and civilians in the town. Troops from the front lines recounted boastful tales of Iranians fleeing before their artillery barrages, while the television pumped out scenes of Iraqi attacks to martial music and announced the claim that Ahwaz, 45 miles into Iran, had just been captured. "Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day," boasted Captain Abu Rashid, beaming proudly in his black beret and crisp green fatigues. "But victory will be ours...
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...