Gulf foes step up blitz on civilian targets

Press, 12 March 1985, Page 10

Gulf foes step up blitz on civilian targets

NZPA-AP Nicosia Iraq bombed Isfahan, Iran’s second largest city, as the two long-time adversaries attacked each other in a seventh day of intensified fighting yesterday. Iran said Iraqi attacks killed at least 277 people. War communiques issued in Iran’s capital, Teheran, and carried by the Islamic Republic News Agency said Iraq had conducted air raids and missile and artillery attacks against nine Iranian cities and a village along the border. Irna said Iranian forces had staged bombing missions and artillery attacks against more than 12 Iraqi cities and border towns in the previous 48 hours. Iran and Iraq have been at war since September, 1980. Western reporters rarely are allowed near the front, and it was impossible to verify Iran’s assertions independently. Iraqi jets had made their deepest strike into Iran in the flare-up, twice bombing Isfahan, about 320 km from Teheran, a broadcast by Bagdad radio said.

Irna said two adults and a 7-year-old child were killed

and 23 people were injured in attacks on Isfahan, which, with a population of about 672,000, is a main Iranian cultural and religious centre. Irna said at least 120 people were killed and scores wounded earlier in an Iraqi air strike against Nahawand, east of the central part of the border. The news agency said Iraqi planes also had attacked the border cities of Baneh and Marivan, in Iranian Kurdistan. It said 60 people were killed in each city, and 80 were wounded in Baneh. Three Iraqi missiles hit Ramhormuz in the southern Iranian oil province of Khuzistan, killing at least 10 people, wounding more than 100, destroying 50 houses and damaging 300, Irna said. Ten people had been wounded when Iraqi planes bombed the southern oilrefining city of Abadan, and 30 homes were destroyed. Attacks had lasted into the evening, as Iraqi jets hit Tabriz, 190 km from the northern most part of the border, killing 24 people and wounding 153.

Irna said Iran had attacked several Iraqi cities, inflicting heavy casualties in bombing the southern port of Basra. It also said Iranian planes had wrecked factories “and other economic centres” in Abol-Khasib, a town south of Basra.

In al-Zobair, south-west of Basra, Iranian attackers had killed “a large group of Iraqi personnel” at a military centre, Irna said. Iran had attacked the town of Tannoumah, east of Basra, and Margasur and Meydan, two small towns north of Bagdad, Irna said. Iraq denied in a communique read over Bagdad radio that Margasur had been raided. It did not comment on other reported attacks or give any casualty figure. Hours before the raids, the United Nations Secre-tary-General, Mr Javier Perez de Cuellar, appealed to Iran and Iraq to stop all attacks against civilian targets.

An Iraqi military spokesman said on Bagdad radio that Iraqi jets had attacked a ship in the Gulf near the Iranian oil terminal of Kharg Island.