Word: basra
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Iranians are clearly trying to break the city's will. Nearly every building along the section of the Shatt al Arab that flows past Basra has been damaged or destroyed. The beige facade of the deserted four-story Sheraton Basra is pockmarked with shrapnel and shell holes. During the intense bombardment in January and February, thousands of panicked residents abandoned their middle-class brick homes near the water...
Beneath the onslaught, the city's piers lie idle. A major shipping center in calmer days, the port of Basra is now filled with stranded and rusting vessels. In the middle of the Shatt al Arab, formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, two cargo ships lie half submerged, the apparent victims of random shells...
Farther from the Iranian rocket launchers, a limited sense of normality remains. A few shops are open, and people walk the mostly empty streets. In & the broken landscape of Basra, however, things may not be what they seem. Standing before a bungalow that she called home, Nazha Shouket Buny, 37, described herself as the only resident of her area who had not fled. "Basra is my city," said Buny, who was smartly dressed in a white sweater and brown skirt. "I am going to stay here." Yet her devotion to a district that lacked food, water and electricity seemed suspect...
Signs of battle scar the road from Basra to Baghdad as well. A dozen immobilized Iraqi tanks rest beside the highway, some with gaping holes in their armor, others mere burned-out hulks. The ruined tanks are a powerful reminder of U.S. arms sales to Iran. Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz attributes his country's equipment losses largely to American shipments of TOW antitank and Hawk antiaircraft missiles to Tehran...
...political signal that their shipment sent. Says he: "The Iranians must have drawn a conclusion that the Americans are not opposed to the installation of an Islamic puppet government in southern Iraq." Baghdad fears that Tehran wants nothing less than to establish just such a republic, with Basra as its capital. In the shadow of that threat, the desperate and desolate city fights for its life...