Iran-Iraq carnage
NZPA-Reuter Bahrain Iraq and Iran are locked in some of the heaviest fighting of the 41-month-old Gulf war, with each saying it has inflicted thousands of casualties on the other along the southern battlefront. Iraqi television transmitted a long film yesterday showing what it said were the corpses of thousands of Iranian soldiers in marshlands north-east of the Iraqi port of Basra. An Iraqi military communique yesterday said nearly 7000 Iranians had been killed during the previous 24 hours after they launched attacks against
Iraq’s Third and Fourth Army Corps. Meanwhile, Iran said its forces had killed 6500 Iraqis since the start of its latest offensive on the southern front last Wednesday. Neither side gave its own casualty figures. Iran has claimed major successes in the offensive but correspondents who visited the Iraqi town of AlQurnah, earlier reported by Iran to have been captured by its troops, saw no sign of Iranian forces.
They also said civilian and military traffic was proceeding normally along the main Bagdad-Basra highway, which Iran said
had come under military fire.
A governor in the area, who met the visiting journalists on Friday, said some 1500 Iranians had been encircled and killed when they tried to attack in motorised canoes across the Hawizah marshes.
“They were encircled by armed peasants and paramilitary popular army men, who wiped them out, killing 1500 and taking 350 others captive,” the governor said. The area lies at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Meanwhile Iran, said it had beaten off four Iraqi counter-attacks on Saturday
east of the Bagdad-Basra highway. The national news agency I.R.N.A. reported intense fighting on Saturday in the border areas along what Teheran calls the Bagdad Amarah Basra axis.
Both sides also reported air raids on Saturday. Iran said at least 15 people died in Iraqi air strikes, adding it had shot down two Iraqi planes and six troop-carrying helicopters.
Iraq said five people were killed in Iranian air raids, while it reported two Iranian jets and seven helicopters downed. Bagdad admitted one of its own planes was lost.
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Press, 27 February 1984, Page 10
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348Iran-Iraq carnage Press, 27 February 1984, Page 10
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