Word: khomeini
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...military officials in Baghdad claimed that Iraqi forces had also destroyed four oil tankers and commercial ships near Kharg Island, the major terminal for Iran's oil exports. Along the border near Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, troops loyal to the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini massed for yet another offensive. Iraq appeared to have lost a bit of its much vaunted technological edge with the news that one of the five Super Etendard fighter-bombers it had bought from France had been damaged in a training flight. But for the moment the mass carnage appeared to subside. Still...
...great, and if Iran wins the worldwide repercussions will be severe. Iran has fielded a half-million man army. Casualty estimates run into the tens of thousands. Iraq now seems to be using deadly mustard gas on a large scale. And a victory for the fundamentalist regime of Ayatolah Khomeini would directly threaten the oil-rich kingdoms of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Jordan...
...proud of in their conduct of the 42-month-old war in the Persian Gulf. Iraq shoulders the blame for starting it all, invading Iran in a reckless attempt to seize some long-disputed border territory from the new and untried revolutionary government of the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. Iran, having repulsed the invasion, has taken the war into Iraq in hopes of forcing the downfall of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the creation in Baghdad of an Islamic republic modeled on Iran's own. Iran has routinely executed large numbers of Iraqi prisoners of war, in violation...
...speech last week, Khomeini urged his troops not to return home to celebrate the Iranian new year, which begins on March 21. This could have been a tacit admission that large numbers of "volunteers" have refused to participate in human-wave attacks and are taking any opportunity to desert the war zone. Many of them were lured to the front after being told that they would become part of a reserve corps for the defense of Iranian cities in event of an emergency and that they were needed to march in the giant parade to celebrate the fifth anniversary...
Another sign that the nation's revolutionary fervor may be ebbing is that the Islamic Guards, Khomeini's elite military organization, are actively conscripting new members. Until recently, the Guards screened all applicants scrupulously to make sure that no opponents of the regime were admitted to membership. Now, however, the Guards are competing with the army for recruits. In some cases, the Guards have taken young draftees who were awaiting induction into the army, creating yet another area of friction between the Guards and the armed forces...