Iraqi offensive crushed, says Teheran

Press, 9 March 1984, Page 6

Iraqi offensive crushed, says Teheran

NZPA-Reuter Nicosia, Cyprus

Iran says that it has crushed a day-long attempt by Iraq to regain the Majnun Islands oilfield. Iraq said yesterday that its helicopter gunships had attacked Iranian positions along the border in 117 sorties. The Iraqis said that they had shot down two Iranian helicopters, destroyed 11 enemy boats, and scored direct hits in 85 infantry concentration spots in a day of air attacks in the southern and central sections of the 1160 km battlefront. Iraq said nothing yesterday of fighting at Majnun, although it had announced the day before that it was launching a counter-offen-sive there. Iran punched across the border to occupy the Majnun Islands and other Iraqi border territory two weeks ago. Fierce fighting has been reported in the marshes of the Basra region since then. International concern has increased that the war could broaden to entangle main Powers. Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency said that 850 Iraqi troops had been killed in the Majnun Ibattle. The Majnun Islands, two sand-bars in the marshes about 140 km northeast of Basra, contain an estimated two billion barrels of crude oil. Independent confirmation ' of the claims was not possible. Access to the war front is severely restricted for foreign reporters, and American military officials have said that both nations

■regularly exaggerate battle 'Claims.

The United Nations Secre-tary-General, Mr Javier Perez de Cuellar, issued a statement saying that he sfrongly condemned the use of chemical weapons wherever and whenever that may have occurred. But he stopped short of saying that he would investigate Iranian allegations that Iraq had used gasbombs against Iranian troops last week. Iran said that the chemical weapons had been dropped on the marshland east of Basra as part of an Iraqi last-ditch effort to halt Iranian troops. It said that more than 400 Iranian soldiers had been killed and 1100 injured. It flew 15 soldiers to Sweden and Austria over the week-end for emergency treatment of chemical wounds. • Two of the soldiers have since died. In a departure from Islamic law, Iran had decided to permit an autopsy on one of them, an Austrian doctor said yesterday. The autopsy may help determine the origin of injuries said Dr Herbert Mandi, a plastic surgeon directly connected with treating the Iranians. • In Geneva the International Committee of the Red Cross said yesterday that an examination of wounded Iranian soldiers had indicated that they had been hurt by substances prohibited by international law. The United States has said that available evidence indicated Iraq used chemical weapons. But Iraq has denied the -allegation, as it has each time during the 42-month

war that Iran has accused Iraq of using chemical weapons. In Washington yesterday, a State Department spokeswoman said that the United States had known since last year that Iraq was using chemical weapons in its wai The spokeswoman, Kathleen Lang, said that, beginning last year, “we ... expressed our concern on this issue several times directly to high-level officials of the Government of Iraq." Asked why the United States was now making public Iraq’s use of chemical weapons, Ms Lang said that the level of evidence had become increasingly convincing. “It had appeared until the current Iranian offensive that the diplomatic efforts we made may have been effective in dissuading Iraq from using chemical weapons,” she said. She noted that the United States had publicised twice Iranian allegations that Iraq was using chemical weapons — in a human rights report on Iraq, in 1983, and in a report last month to the United Nations Secretary-General in a section on chemical weapons used in 1983.

In London, trade sources said that charter rates for tankers risking the voyage into the Gulf war zone had shot up as much as 60 per cent in the last two weeks. Increased nervousness about the possibility of Iraqi attacks at Kharg Island was behind the increase. The same nervousness led this week to rises in war risk rates charged by London insurers, they said.