Word: iraqi
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...resumed the fierce battle for Basra, Iraq's second largest city, which lies only 14 miles from the Iran-Iraq border. Once again the fighting involved tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides, and in scope and intensity resembled the desert battles of World War II. The Iraqi forces of President Saddam Hussein fought tenaciously to hold their positions, and at week's end had managed to blunt the Iranian attack...
...Iranian tanks were met by fierce fire from Iraqi artillery and helicopter gunships. Khomeini's troops advanced in waves, stepping over their own wounded on the battlefield, before many fell to join them. "If you ever wanted to know what suicide means," said an Iraqi officer at the site, "you should have seen how they advanced and how they were mowed down. Then the flies began to swarm over the Iranian dead. That's all you could see: the sand, the flies and the corpses. I have never seen anything like...
...important part in Khomeini's decision to send his forces into Iraq. The Ayatullah, who was exiled to Iraq's Holy City of An Najaf after several arrests for anti-Shah activities, has never forgiven Saddam Hussein for trying to use him as a pawn in Iraqi-Iranian relations. To placate the Shah during a short-lived period of rapprochement betweeen the two countries, Saddam Hussein placed Khomeini under virtual house arrest in 1975. Three years later, as the Shah came under increasing pressure from Islamic fundamentalists operating with Khomeini's backing, Saddam agreed to expel...
...self-flagellation. The same passion seems to have motivated hundreds of thousands of unarmed Iranians who faced down the Shah's troops in the streets of Tehran in 1978 and 1979. Khomeini, no doubt, is counting on that fervor to propel the Iranian legions that stormed across the Iraqi border last week...
Almost every day, government officials, military officers, clerics and foreign representatives travel to Khomeini's modest home in Jamaran, a village north of Tehran. Some have been summoned to brief the Ayatullah on everything from logistic problems on the Iraqi front to statistics on mosque attendance. Others who wish to see Khomeini must submit a request through a cleric who acts as an appointments secretary; Khomeini receives only a small proportion of those seeking an audience. Sometimes he will make an appearance at the mosque adjacent to his house. There...