Iraqi Warplanes Attack Target Close to Tehran

Iraqi warplanes bombed an arms factory just south of Tehran on Wednesday and struck other targets in Iran including a steel plant, an army camp and two railroad bridges, a military spokesman said.

The attacks ended a three-month lull in Iraqi bombing raids on or near Iranian cities.

Iran made no specific mention of the targets as reported by Iraq, but it said Iraqi warplanes struck at Tehran’s southern outskirts, injuring seven civilians.

Alert sirens were sounded in the Iranian capital before the raid, “but the situation returned to normal after a short while,” Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency said in a dispatch monitored in Cyprus.

The Iraqi spokesman, quoted by the state-run news agency, said Iraqi warplanes “scored direct and accurate hits” on an arms factory at Parchin, 25 miles southeast of Tehran, and on a steel plant at Mubarakeh, 30 miles south of the central city of Esfahan.

The reported raid on Parchin was the closest to Tehran since the May bombing of a refinery just outside the Iranian capital, 310 miles east of the Iraq-Iran border.

Military Camp Raided

According to the Iraqi spokesman, who was not identified in keeping with military regulations, Iraqi planes also raided a military camp at Mosak and two railroad bridges at or near Taleh Zang, all in western Iran.

All raiding jets returned safely after inflicting heavy casualties on Iranian troops, the spokesman said.

Gulf-based oil executives, in contact with Iran, confirmed the Iraqi air raid on the steel factory. One executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the plant was “very extensively damaged.”

Iraqi officials have recently been threatening to attack Iranian military, oil, economic and industrial installations as well as routes that could be used in supporting Iran’s war effort.

The two countries have been fighting a bloody border war since September, 1980.

Recent Iraqi raids have been confined to bombing troop positions along the 730-mile front line and attacks on Iranian-chartered oil tankers and Iran’s Kharg Island oil terminal in the northeastern Persian Gulf.