Word: karun
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...breakthrough continued to elude them, Iraqi forces were tightening a noose around the ports of Khorramshahr and Abadan on the bank of the Shatt al Arab waterway. Buttressed by batteries of 130-mm artillery, an estimated 9,000 Iraqi infantrymen, using three pontoon bridges, succeeded in crossing the Karun River. Their military command declared it "Iraq's largest amphibious assault ever." From that bridgehead Iraqi tanks fanned southward to surround both Khorramshahr and Abadan. The Iranians charged that the Iraqis bombarded both cities with artillery and with surface-to-surface missiles. Eyewitnesses said the carnage among civilians...
Iraq first claimed Khorramshahr had fallen four days after the start of the war, only to encounter stiff resistence in the section of the city cut off from the port sector by the Karun River. Iraqi tanks then attacked and encircled the city...
...port area and in repelling a series of savage counterattacks by Iranian regulars and militiamen. Reported an Iranian journalist who witnessed one of the battles: "The carnage was unbelievable. The plains around the city were strewn with corpses." By Saturday the Iraqis claimed that their infantry had crossed the Karun River and thus established a new beachhead beyond Khorramshahr...