Word: basra
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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After two weeks of ferocious shelling by Iranian forces, Iraq's besieged southern port city of Basra is becoming a ravaged wasteland of damaged buildings and pockmarked streets. Toxic gas has engulfed an area south of the city where Iranian artillery barrages set fire to a petrochemical complex. Demoralized and frightened, thousands of the city's 1 million residents have reportedly fled north to the capital of Baghdad in cars, on bicycles and on foot. Said a U.S. official: "If there is a victory in this for the Iranians, it is that they have been able to create the impression...
...gulf conflict dragged on, military observers noted a strategic anomaly. Despite clear advantages in weaponry and training, the Iraqis have thus far been unwilling to commit troops decisively on the front to dislodge the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini's fanatical Revolutionary Guards. Said Pentagon Spokesman Robert Sims: "The battle for Basra is becoming one of the largest battles of this lengthy...
...which both sides have amassed at least 200,000 soldiers. Since beginning its offensive in December, the Iranian army has made small gains south of Fish Lake, a 120- sq.-mi. area flooded by the Iraqis as a defensive barrier. Iran has also made incremental progress southeast of Basra in the marshy terrain along the Shatt al Arab, a strategic waterway that affords access to the Persian Gulf. The new toehold has enabled the Iranians to bombard Basra from closer range...
...siege of Basra seemed to have turned up the pressure considerably on the Iraqi government. In a Baghdad radio address, Saddam referred to Khomeini's "human wave" assaults, accusing the Iranian leader of "appealing, as if the devil were between his eyes, for further men to push into the inferno of death." He repeated his offer for a peace settlement, which the Iranian government promptly rejected. Meanwhile, a government-controlled newspaper published a decree by the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council asking for volunteers aged 14 through 25 to enlist in the army...
...immediate objective of the current campaign, for which the Iranians have amassed at least 650,000 troops, is the port city of Basra (pop. 1 million). Iranian strategists hope that the fall of the city would lead to the collapse of Saddam Hussein and the creation of an Iranian-style Islamic republic. Basra, like Iran itself, is inhabited mainly by Shi'ite Muslims...