Word: mehran
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...fanatical legions of the Ayatullah Khomeini suffered another embarrassing defeat last week, this one apparently inflicted by their countrymen. In a cross-border strike from their base in Iraq, the National Liberation Army of the People's Mujahedin, a leftist Iranian dissident group, seized the border town of Mehran and drove its pro-Khomeini defenders beyond the surrounding hills. N.L.A. spokesmen claimed to have killed and wounded as many as 8,000 Iranian troops during the ten-hour battle, code-named Operation Forty Stars. Western reporters brought to the battle scene confirmed that the rebels had captured 1,500 Iranian...
Formed just one year ago by Massoud Rajavi, 40, a longtime foe of Khomeini, and his wife Maryam, the N.L.A. consists of 15,000-to-25,000 fighters, and is backed by the Iraqi regime. Although the Iranians acknowledged their defeat at Mehran, they insisted it had been inflicted by Iraqi troops using chemical weapons. Baghdad denied any involvement in the battle. At week's end, however, Iraq did claim that its forces had recaptured the oil-rich Majnoun islands east of the Tigris River, where Iranian defenders had been entrenched since...
...After a long stalemate, the military balance shifted somewhat last February, when the Iranians captured the Fao peninsula in southern Iraq and Iraqi forces failed to retake it despite massive bombardment and the alleged use of mustard gas. The Iraqis hit back by seizing the Iranian border town of Mehran in May, but were later forced to give...
...increasingly swung in Iran's favor. In February, Tehran staged its most sophisticated assault of the long and bloody conflict. Named Val Fajr (I Swear by the Dawn), the attack seized the Iraqi oil port of Fao. Iraq recovered briefly by capturing the Iranian border town of Mehran in May, only to lose it again in June. Though it enjoys an enormous advantage in equipment, its reliance on rigid defensive tactics makes its soldiers vulnerable to the night attacks and lightning raids of its enemy. "Remember," says a senior U.S. official, "the Iranians are chess players, and the Arabs...