Word: basra
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Iranian offensive, the fourth launched by Tehran since last July, was apparently aimed at the Iraqi city of Al Amarah. Seizure of the town would enable Iran to intercept supply and troop movements between Baghdad, the capital, and the southern port city of Basra. By midweek, Tehran Radio was claiming that advancing forces had "liberated" 120 sq. mi. of Iranian territory from Iraqi forces since the attack began. An Iraqi military spokesman was contending that the attackers did not gain "one inch of Iraqi territory...
...manpower over Iraqi firepower, they claim to have captured 210 sq. mi. of territory, killing 6,100 Iraqi defenders and taking 3,400 prisoners. The attackers penetrated three to six miles into Iraq, seizing positions within shelling range of a strategically important highway linking Baghdad to the port of Basra, 280 miles to the south...
...behind its own earth revetment. If the Iranians attempted to move toward Amara, they would invite the same decimation that they received in five full-scale attacks last summer, when wave upon wave of poorly trained Islamic Guards rushed across the flood plain of the Shatt al Arab toward Basra...
Khomeini is anxious to continue his war against Iraq's Saddam Hussein, and U.S. intelligence sources expect another attack on the strategic Iraqi city of Basra, located on the Persian Gulf in the heart of Iraq's oil-producing region, within the next few weeks. But for the first time, Iranian mullahs are having difficulty recruiting volunteers to die for their cause. Complains Hojjatoleslam Rouhani, chairman of the defense committee of the Majlis: "Only some valorous and militant youths go to the fronts, and the others loaf around with no sense of responsibility." The mullahs...
...explosives gutted all six stories of the building. The government has played down the explosion, but such a terrorist strike in a city preparing to welcome the summit of nonaligned nations in September does not augur well for security. It also underlines the view of my friend, the Basra merchant, that the Shi'ites may not be as loyal to the Saddam government as we are told. There are two fronts in Iraq today: the battlefield in the desert, and the Shi'ite fifth column in the cities waiting for Khomeini's forces to arrive...