Army in battle

Press, 12 January 1981, Page 8

Army in battle

NZPA-Reuter London ■ I Iran and Iraq both claimed i big victories yesterday after four days of heavy fighting I in the Gulf War. ' No independent accounts were available, but diplo- : mats in Bagdad said that after a long period of stale- I mate Iran had thrown major units of its regular Army I into battle for almost, the i first tjjne in the four-month- : old war. , 1 Iran said yesterday .that its. troops, who launched a I counter-offensive against the i invading Iraqis four . days < ago, had captured a number < of Iraqi border posts in the past 24 hours. . i The Iranian State radio i said President Abolhassgn i Bani-Sadr told his troops in a battle zone that they had i inflicted unimaginable dam- i age and casualties on the : Iraqis. : The President also told a group of Iranian diplomats : that Iranian forces had sur- ; rounded 3000 . Iraqi soldiers :

on a hill in Kermanshahan province, about 500 km north of the Gulf. Iraq, however, said it had broken the . main counter-of-fensive around the besieged town of Susangerd in Khuzestan province. President Saddam Hussein •: himself spent three days at the front, his first visit to. the battle zone in three months of war and a clear sign that the fighting had been of crucial importance.The commander of the forces in the battle reported in a telegram to the President that Iraqi forces had defeated the v Iranian . offen-c sive after rushing in reinforcements and had put an entire Iranian armoured division out of action. • Before the Iranian counter-attack on Susangerd,. the Gulf War had settled . into stalemate with .Iraqi forces occupying about. third of oil-producing Khu-' zestan province ’ and other territory in the mountains-Trf' the. north. ;