Iran Claims It Hit Baghdad With Missile

Iran said it hit the Iraqi capital of Baghdad with a missile early today, and witnesses in the center of Baghdad said a huge explosion demolished most of the 12-story main branch of the government-owned Rafidan Bank.

Iraq denied that Baghdad had been hit by a missile and said the bank was damaged by a bomb planted by Iranian agents. An Interior Ministry source, speaking on Baghdad radio, said some bank guards were injured in the blast.

The two Muslim nations, at war since September, 1980, also exchanged air raids today--the latest in a 10-day exchange of attacks on civilian targets.

After Iran’s reported missile attack, the official Islamic Republic News Agency of Iran said Iraqi warplanes fired missiles into Iran’s capital, Tehran, and the northeastern city of Tabriz, killing 17 people.

Ship Attacked in Gulf

An Iraqi spokesman confirmed the air raids on the two cities and said a ship headed for Iranian ports had been attacked in the Persian Gulf.

Iraq said the Iranian claim that it had hit Baghdad with a missile was an “obvious lie” aimed at covering up Iranian military failures. The Interior Ministry attributed the explosion to an “explosive charge that went off before dawn in the (bank’s) ninth floor.”

The Iraqi Interior Ministry source, who was not identified, blamed “agents of the Iranian regime and those who sold themselves to the foreigners” for the blast. He spoke on state-controlled radio.

Witnesses reported the explosion on Al Rashid Street could be heard 12 miles away. A resident of the neighborhood said he saw a “huge fire” immediately after the blast as well as ambulances and fire engines racing to the scene.

Border 100 Miles Away

The Iranian news agency, quoting foreign diplomats, said the weapon was a ground-to-ground missile. The report said the missile hit the Rafidan Bank, which it said is near Iraq’s defense and information ministries.

Iran’s border is about 100 miles from Baghdad.

But Arab and Western diplomatic sources in Kuwait and Abu Dhabi, reached by telephone from Bahrain, said it is unlikely that the Iranians hit downtown Baghdad with a missile.