Troops Attack With Motorboats, Loudspeakers : Iran and Iraq Play Deadly Hide-and-Seek in Marshes

Iranian and Iraqi forces are playing a deadly game of hide-and-seek through these marshes of southern Iraq, where Iran has been advancing reed bed by reed bed since March of last year.

The southern marshes around Majnoon Island have witnessed some of Iran’s most costly “human wave” offensives in the Iran-Iraq War. But farther north, the fighters seen on a recent visit to the Iranian front were well spread out and not numerous.

In contrast to Majnoon’s tank-bearing pontoon bridges, here most of the fighting is conducted from light motorboats. Enemy positions on lakeside islands are attacked via narrow, winding canals cut through three-yard-high reeds.

Unusual Weapons

The unusual circumstances breed unusual weapons. One steel barge had a multibarreled rocket launcher while the bows of some captured Iraqi boats were fitted with heavy machine guns.

Other boats had loudspeakers used to try to demoralize Iraqi troops by blaring Islamic propaganda over the water.

Some positions even had ancient wooden dugout canoes once used by the original “Marsh Arab” inhabitants of the area.

Military attaches in Tehran say the adaptability of Iranian forces to the marshes offers Iran its best chance of breaking through Iraq’s heavily defended front lines in a big offensive expected soon.

However, there was no sign of a troop buildup in the northern area visited by reporters.

The main body of the Hawizah marshes, about 50 miles long and 30 miles wide, is in Iraq. Similar terrain covers much of southern Iraq around the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Ferrying, Fighting

Ferrying and fighting through the marshes has become a way of life for Iranians Ahmad Mirzai and Mohammad Raseh, both 16, who seek nothing more than their fast motorboat and a part in the war.

“I don’t miss my family at all,” Ahmad shouted above the roar of his outboard engine. Mohammad said: “I love the war. . . . We get paid nothing, 2,000 rials ($25) a month. What do you mean, do I like the marshes? Of course I do.”

Most of the fighters manning low huts on the reed beds were lightly armed Iraqi dissidents, many of whom said they had been fighting in Iran’s pay for years.

“In the last attack, it was just the Iraqis who were allowed to fight,” said Ahmad. “We Iranians were crying to be allowed to go in with them.”

The dissidents showed scant concern for the fact that they were fighting their own countrymen. “We are fighting for Islam,” said teen-ager Abu Ra’id.

Of 420 Iraqi soldiers manning positions taken in a surprise night attack in late October, the dissidents said they took only 75 prisoner and killed the rest.

“We knew it was coming, so we surrendered straight away,” said one Iraqi prisoner who was shot in the arm. His companion was shot in the back, and another jumped into the water only to be run over by a motorboat.

They were taken to a hospital in Ahvaz, about 60 miles behind Iran’s border with Iraq, through a chain of five emergency medical stations, starting with a canal-side reed hut deep in the marshes.

Dr. Najafi, head of the 30-bed Ahvaz emergency ward, said that on most days he received 40 to 50 casualties from the whole southern war front, but this toll rose to more than 100 during offensives. Most injuries were from mortar bomb shrapnel, he added.

Mortar fire, however, is not very effective in the marshes, as reporters witnessed when one of their boats was bracketed by two bombs 10 yards to each side. The blasts sent plumes of blackened spray high into the air, with the water absorbing most of the shrapnel.

The Iraqis spotted the flotilla through field glasses, a constant danger for boats that lose their way in the labyrinthine canals and lakes.

The reed beds are drifting constantly, closing some channels and opening new ones. Boatmen rely on a variety of signs stuck to reeds--polystyrene blocks for one route, “this way to the front” signs and arrows.

There are many banners extolling the virtues of Shia Muslims martyrdom. “I lost one friend, a martyr. Mohammad and I both think we must follow him,” Ahmad said.

Fighters said the marshes were unpleasant in the summer heat, plagued by mosquitoes and flies, while a foul-smelling sulfureous gas bubbled up through pea-soup-colored backwaters.

“You get used to the smell,” said Mohammad, stopping his cracked fiberglass craft to disentangle weeds from its propeller and empty bilge water. “But it’s better than the other gas.”

Many fighters keep gas masks and antidotes in case of any Iraqi chemical attack.

“In the evening, we work clearing the waterways or go to classes to learn the Koran (the Muslim holy book). We study in tents,” Mohammad said.

“Government teachers come to the front to get us ready for the exams,” he added. “We don’t play games.”