Iran puts army on anti-Iraq alert

Press, 9 April 1980, Page 8

Iran puts army on anti-Iraq alert

NZPA-Reuter Teheran

Iran’s ..rrned forces were put on alert yesterday as relations with neighbouring Iraq deteriorated rapidly and reports reaching Teheran indicated that several thousand Iranians were being expelled from Iraq. The National Defence Council, comprising President AbolhasSan BaniSadr, the Defence Minister (Mr Mostafa Chamran), and the heads of the armed services and Revolutionary Guard Corps, were due to meet to discuss the • worsening crisis between Teheran and Bagdad.

Reports from the boriter provinces of Ham and Kermanshah said that at least 6000 Iranians had been deported from Iraq in truck convoys and were being housed in makeshift camps near-the frontier.

According to some of the refugees, quoted by the official Pars news agency, up to 12,000 more were being driven to the border and would arrive in Iran in the next 48 hours.

The army alert followed renewed sabotage against Iranian oil installations which the authorities have blamed on Iraqi-backed insurgents.

A Pars correspondent in the border town of Qasr-E-Shirin, on the main highway from Bagdad to Teheran, reported that some 4500 refugees had crossed into Iran in the 24 hours to Monday evening. Pars quoted the Gover-nor-General of Kermanshah province as appealing for emergency supplies, tents, and blankets for the flood of deportees.

Several Iranian religious leaders alleged yesterday that Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Bagher Sadr, a

prominent Shi’ite Muslim leader in the Iraqi Shi’ite holy city of Najaf, had been arrested with his family and taken to Bagdad.

Iran’s revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeiny, lived in Najaf for 14 years during the deposed Shah’s regime and was arrested by Iraqi authorities there in September, 1978, before leaving for temporary exile in Paris.

A planned demonstration outside the Iraqi Embassy in Teheran yesterday failed to draw a large crowd. - A handful of people chanting, “Islam is victorious, (Iraqi President) Saddam . Hussein is defeated,”’ were .drowned out by rush-hour traffic.

Relations between the two States have grown ‘steadily worse since Irart’s Islamic ; revolution last year swept the Shi’ite clergy to power in Teheran.