Word: etendards
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...danger was that if Iraq suffered a major battlefield defeat it might decide to use the Super Etendard fighter-bombers it bought from France last fall to attack Kharg Island, Iran's principal oil terminal. Iran has repeatedly said it would retaliate by blockading the strait, thereby halting shipment of most of the oil produced by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Iran. Last week Iranian officials warned again that if the U.S. and its supporters try to intervene in the war "their fate would be decisively worse than their fate in Lebanon...
Western diplomats believe Iraq can carry out its threat. In October, the country received from France five highly sophisticated Super Etendard fighter-bombers, which can be equipped with lethal Exocet missiles. The Iraqis increased the pressure earlier this month with air strikes that, they claim, sank nine "enemy naval targets" in the gulf. In response, Iran has hardened its position. Only an end to the rule of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Iranian officials insist, will bring a settlement. Iran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz to all shipping if Iraq launches attacks on its oil facilities...
Iraq began putting new pressure on Iran in October, when the Baghdad government took delivery from France of five Exocet-equipped Super Etendard fighter-bombers. The Iraqis then said they had mined approaches to Bandar-Khomeini. Iraq also threatened to bomb a nearby petrochemical plant, as well as an Iranian oil-exporting facility in the gulf. In an attempt to cut off Iran's vital resources, the Iraqis have fired on numerous other foreign freighters in recent weeks...
That night in Paris, French President François Mitterrand told his countrymen in a television interview: "You can be sure that the crime of Oct. 23 will not go unpunished." Scarcely 17 hours later, 14 French Super Etendard fighter-bombers from the aircraft carrier Clemenceau staged a 35-minute attack on the same region of the Bekaa Valley, leveling barracks and training bases of the Shi'ite extremists. Among the targets was the ancient city of Baalbek's Khawwam Hotel, the command headquarters of the estimated 1,000 Iranian Islamic revolutionary guards who have been operating...
...cease-fire resolution, believed to have been drafted by France, to be put before the United Nations Security Council. To help placate Iran, the resolution also condemns Iraqi bombing of civilian targets in Iran. Yet the Iranians, who are angry at France for selling Iraq five Super Etendard fighter-bombers as well as Exocet air-to-surface missiles, were not impressed. Tehran still insists that the price of peace with Iraq is the ouster of the man who started the war, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein...