Iraq turns air power on to Iranians

Press, 15 February 1986, Page 10

Iraq turns air power on to Iranians

NZPA-Reuter Manama, Bahrain Heavy fighting was reported on the southern Gulf war front yesterday and Iran said its troops had made progress on the west bank of the strategic Shatt al-Arab waterway despite a huge Iraqi air assault. , ] Teheran Radio quoted a war communique yesterday as saying the number of Iraqi prisoners had risen to 1500 since Iranian troops launched a surprise* offensive across the 500-metre-wide border waterway on Monday. Iran gave an over-all figure, of 10,000 Iraqi casualties.

Iraq spoke of “epic fighting” with Iranian forces trapped in “an arena of death” on the Faw peninsula, at the head of the Gulf, as Iraqi

troops launched counterattacks backed by massed artillery, missiles and air strikes.

A Bagdad communique said Iraqi aircraft had flown 416 sorties and helicopter gunships 284 combat support missions. Aircraft also had raided Ahvaz airfield, in western Iran, damaging troopcarrying planes there, it said. Iranian television showed film on Thursday taken by crews driving several kilometres out of the battered oil terminal port of Faw. Iran says it has crossed the Faw peninsula to the bank of the Khawr abd Allah waterway opposite the Kuwaiti island of Bubiyan. In New York, Iran’s United Nations envoy, Said Rajaie-Khorassani,

said the Iranian President had sent a letter to the Kuwaiti ruler assuring him that Teheran’s forces would not attack Kuwait or neighbouring States. “We are not any threat to our neighbours. We are in very, very good relations with all of them,” he said;

An Arab League committee and Gulf Arab States have condemned Iran’s latest offensive, the first big drive in 11 months, and expressed concern that the five-year-old Gulf conflict could spread.

The Iranian news agency, Irna, said Teheran’s troops had inflicted heavy blows on the Iraqis in the new offensive, codenamed Dawn 8.

It said the Iranians had destroyed 90 Iraqi tanks and 50 personnel carriers

and seized 30 more tanks and 50 carriers along the highway; running north from Faw to the southern port of Basra, Iraq’s second biggest city with a population of about one million.

Iraq said the battle was taking place in the Army’s 7th Corps sector. Earlier communiques said the 3rd Corps had recaptured the strategic Umm al-Rassas island in the centre of the Shatt al-Arab, killing over 3000 Iranians.

Both sides have claimed a number of aircraft' shot down, while neither has given its own casualty figures. In Teheran doctors showed correspondents victims of what they said was renewed Iraqi chemical warfare, which has included the World War I killer,, mustard gas.