Word: basra
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...when the invasion was launched. He was met there by TIME Photographer Peter Jordan, who had accompanied Brelis and Gart the week before and stayed in Iraq as the threat of invasion increased. When Iran attacked, Jordan was the only Western journalist at the scene of the fighting near Basra; he had been in the border area for two or three days. Says Jordan: "There was the odd shelling, and gradually it got closer and heavier. There was also shelling in the vicinity of Basra and the neighboring town of Abu al Khasib. It was amazing to see how people...
After 48 hours of rising artillery exchanges, the Iranian high command last Tuesday night broadcast a coded message: "Ya Saheb ez-Zaman! Ya Saheb ez-Zaman!" (Translation: Thou absent Imam!) That was the order for as many as 100,000 soldiers and militiamen to begin the march toward Basra, Iraq's second largest city and the nerve center of its oil-producing region, and to engage an Iraqi army of about the same size. "Operation Ramadan" had begun. The first Iranian goal appeared to be the capture of Basra and much of southern Iraq, from which the invaders could either...
...worst worries of the U.S. and of the moderate Arab leaders presuppose an Iraqi defeat by the Iranian invaders. But the outcome of the war is not clear by any means. The Iraqis appeared by week's end to have blunted the initial Iranian attack on Basra and driven the Iranians back almost to the border. The Iraqis were fighting harder in defense of their country than they had fought during their long, misguided adventure in Iran. U.S. intelligence sources confirmed that Iraqi MiG-21s had staged an air attack on the Iranian petroleum facilities at Kharg Island. Damage...
...stench from the bodies was so intolerable that the Iraqis stuffed tissues or cotton into their nostrils. Among the Iranian prisoners were children, boys of twelve and 13, who wore the colors of the Revolutionary Guards. When the Iranians, who had fought their way to within eight miles of Basra, realized that they were surrounded on three sides by Iraqi forces, they reportedly broke ranks in panic. Some surrendered, later acknowledging to interrogators that they had been assured by their superiors that their victories inside Iran last spring would lead to further triumphs once they had entered Iraq." That...
Iranian armed forces are poised for an assault at three points along the Iraqi border: in the south, where the reconnaissance information indicates that Iranian troops are concentrated near the port of Basra, the site of Iraq's major oil production facilities; in the center, near Amara, where Iranian troops are solidly entrenched within 200 miles of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital; and in the north, where Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini has persuaded Kurdish dissidents to foment new trouble for the regime of President Saddam Hussein. In Tehran last week, Iran's Defense Minister, Mohammed Salimi, sounded a clear...