Word: basra
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...captured the islands, but were forced to retreat after Iraq counterattacked with helicopter gunships, heavy artillery, missiles and rockets. Visiting the battlefield later, journalists saw the bodies of hundreds of Iranian soldiers on the ground or in the swampy waters to the east of the Iraqi port city of Basra. The Iraqis' claim that 32,000 Iranians were killed in the fighting was undoubtedly exaggerated. But Lieut. General Mahir Abdel Rashid of the Iraqi Third Army Corps may have accurately described the engagement as "one of the bloodiest battles we've fought in six years...
Iranian leaders, including Rafsanjani, vehemently denied that the attack had been the beginning of the long-awaited offensive. Iran, boasted Rafsanjani, was still "counting down for the decisive final blow." On the other hand, some Western analysts contended that the wall of defenses around Basra, Iraq's second largest city, had prevented the Iranians from achieving even the limited objective of holding onto the four islands...
...troop concentrations in the hope of heading off Tehran's long- awaited "final offensive," for which the Iranians have amassed an estimated 650,000 troops along the 730-mile front. According to Iraq, Iranian forces launched a Christmas Eve assault aimed at capturing the southern Iraqi city of Basra but were repulsed by Iraqi troops after suffering huge losses. The Iranians, on the other hand, claimed they had merely been trying to capture four Iraqi islands in the Shatt-al-Arab waterway and had inflicted heavy casualties...
...deep into Iran, hitting first a petrochemical complex at the port of Bandar Khomeini and then an oil refinery and a power station in Isfahan. In response, Tehran Radio announced that Iranian artillery units would retaliate by shelling targets in southern Iraq. The station warned Iraqi civilians to evacuate Basra, Iraq's second largest city, as well as Umm Qasr, at the head of the Persian Gulf, and Khanaqin, a town northeast of Baghdad...
...part, Khomeini remains determined to continue the costly war "to the frontiers of martyrdom." The only other resolution would come from a decisive victory by one side or the other. But even in the event of a Basra offensive, military analysts predict, Iran will still prove unable to win the war and Iraq unlikely to lose it. The only certainty is more blood, and then more...