Word: basra
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Iranian high command abandoned its suicidal tactic of human wave assaults and adopted a more conventional deployment of armor and artillery to confront the Iraqis. The Iranian forces pushed eleven miles inside Iraqi territory before they were stopped by a ferocious counterattack near the strategic Iraqi port of Basra. For the spoils of a few miles of sun-baked marshland, some 2,000 Iranians lost their lives. Iraq now says that more than 21,000 Iranian troops have been killed in the abortive drive on Basra, while Iraqi casualties, though not publicized, are estimated to be 5,000 dead...
...darkness last Wednesday night, the invading Iranian forces of the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini launched a large-scale artillery barrage that lit the eastern sky. Tanks rushed forward in long columns, flanked on either side by Iranian Revolutionary Guards carrying rifles with fixed bayonets. Thus resumed the fierce battle for Basra, Iraq's second largest city, which lies only 14 miles from the Iran-Iraq border. Once again the fighting involved tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides, and in scope and intensity resembled the desert battles of World War II. The Iraqi forces of President Saddam Hussein fought...
Late in the week, fighting continued a mile or two inside Iraqi territory to the east of Fish Lake, the site of an Iraqi victory a few days earlier (see box). The Iranians are still hoping to break through the Iraqi positions and advance quickly to Basra (est. pop. 500,000), an important oil center that lies 280 miles from Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. But Iraqi officials suspected that the attacks in the vicinity of Basra might be a diversionary tactic aimed at distracting the Iraqis from a larger and more serious threat to the north. If the Iranians should...
...tendency to use human-wave attacks to achieve quick victories. These commanders believe that Iran should try to wear down the enemy more slowly without wasting men and resources. Through further attacks, they reason, they could weaken the Iraqis' morale and gradually expand the size of the Basra front, which at present is only ten miles wide. The Ayatullah reportedly rejects such talk out of hand. Complains a former military official in Tehran: "Khomeini and his aides think only of one thing, the protection of their regime at any cost...
...wolflike beard and the satanic eyes glared at you from a billboard on the outskirts of Basra. Instantly recognizable, the caricature of Khomeini has a bold red X painted over the face, as if to hold back the hated enemy. Says the Arabic writing scrawled across the neck: "Khomeini, scourge of the Muslim world...