Word: shatt
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Iranian forces had launched a second offensive that they hoped would rout the Iraqis from Iranian territory, which had been invaded in September 1980. Hundreds of Iranian commandos were dropped by helicopter behind Iraqi artillery lines in an attempt to recapture the Iranian city of Khorramshahr on the strategic Shatt al Arab waterway. Throughout the week, bloody battles raged near the city, where Iraq's armed forces had instructions to fight to the last man. Both sides suffered heavy casualties. At week's end Iran claimed to have won a major victory as Iraq ordered its forces...
...King Hussein, rushed to Baghdad for consultations after the Iranian victory, as did Saudi Defense Minister Prince Sultan. Iranian officials insist that they have no plans to attack Iraq, but they do want compensation for war losses and an unconditional retreat to the previous border along the disputed Shatt al Arab waterway...
...mile front began its second year last week, causing at least 50 casualties a day on each side. In all, more than 10,000 Iranians and roughly the same number of Iraqis have died since the Iraqis attacked on Sept. 22, 1980. Their aim: to seize the strategic Shatt al Arab estuary, a waterway long disputed by the two neighboring countries that runs into the Persian Gulf. The Iraqis failed in this objective and everyone has suffered. Now the Shatt al Arab is useless to both countries; some 70 ships have been trapped in the waters by the fighting...
Undeterred, Saddam went ahead to the summit and renewed a longstanding offer to settle the four-month war. If Iran would give up its claim to the disputed Shatt al Arab waterway, Saddam told the summit, Iraq would promise to withdraw its forces from Iran. Said he: "A solution must be based on the recovery of territorial and offshore rights Iran has [previously] usurped by force." Within hours, the absent but attentive Iranians responded: no deal until all Iraqi troops have left Iranian soil...
Former Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, acting as the U.N.'s peacemaker, returned from successive visits to the two warring capitals with an agreement in principle for freeing 63 merchant ships trapped in the Shatt al Arab waterway. Said he: "The first ray of hope." In Washington, a high State Department official was less sanguine: "It's a bloody low-level conflict, a bit like the trench warfare of World War I. It could...