Word: basra
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...intensity not seen since last year's bloody land battles. This time the teeming capitals of the two countries, Tehran and Baghdad, were among the targets. Iraqi jets struck Tehran and at least a dozen other Iranian cities. While Iranian artillery zeroed in on the Iraqi port city of Basra and ground forces launched an offensive in the vast Huwaiza marshes of southern Iraq, aircraft raided Baghdad. When a huge explosion shattered part of the 13-story Baghdad headquarters of Iraq's Rafidain Bank, Tehran claimed that one of its surface- to-surface missiles had hit the building; the Iraqis...
...dead Iranian troops in the battle zone. Even so, the Iranians did not mount the human-wave assault the Iraqis had been expecting for months, possibly because the latest offensive had limited objectives: to strengthen Iranian positions in the marshlands and threaten Iraq's highway link between Baghdad and Basra...
Neither Iran nor Iraq mentioned any new ground fighting north of Basra where the Iranians launched a major offensive March 11. Iraq reported Monday that the invasion was crushed and military communiques yesterday said Iranian casualties totaled 27,200 during the battle in the marshland...
...main objective of Iran is to crush the Kurdish rebels once and for all. But it, too, wants to use the Kurds to create a diversion for its primary foe. If Iran launches another major offensive, it will probably be in the south, near Basra. By attacking the Kurds along the northern border, the Iranians hope to make the Iraqis move some of their forces away from Basra...
...bombed civilian targets on the ground. Iraq mounted a raid on the northern Iranian border town of Baneh, killing several hundred people who had gathered to celebrate the anniversary of the 1963 riots against the Shah. In response, Iran sent shells crashing into Iraq's beleaguered port of Basra; Iraq retaliated by hitting the Iranian oil city of with a single missile, killing twelve people. Some observers thought the activity was a prelude to another, long-awaited &quoet;human wave" offensive by Iran, a view reinforced by a decloration of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini that last Tuesday would be remembered...