24-Hour Shelling of Iraq Started, Iran Says
Iran reported Saturday that it carried out a series of attacks on economic, industrial and military targets inside Iraq and said that it started 24 hours of long-range retaliatory shelling against Iraqi cities.
The Iranians said they shelled the cities in retaliation for a series of Iraqi air raids. Four Iraqi cities holy to Shia Muslims were spared from shelling, the Tehran statement said.
It also asserted that its soldiers had infiltrated 120 miles inside the northern border and, along with Iraqi Kurdish dissidents, had successfully attacked three northern Iraqi cities--Irbil, Mosul and Zakho.
Tehran also said that the attackers “wiped out” the headquarters of the Iraqi Army 38th Division, which protects the pipeline carrying the bulk of Iraqi oil exports to Turkish Mediterranean ports.
Acknowledging a raid on Amara, Iraq said that two Iranian planes attacked a hospital there, wounding 13 people, and damaged or destroyed five houses. The Iraqis added that Iran’s long-range artillery shelled residential areas in the border cities of Basra, Qurnah and Mandali.
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