Iraq Claims Recapture of Territory; Iran Says It Crushed Drive

The government claimed it retook 15 square miles of its territory near Basra on the bitterly fought southern front Saturday, but Iran said it killed or wounded 3,000 Iraqi troops in crushing the Iraqi counteroffensive.

In the Iraqi capital, celebrants fired automatic weapons into the air after an excited announcer on state-run television proclaimed a “great victory” had saved Basra from threatened Iranian occupation.

Basra, in southern Iraq, is this nation’s only commercial port city and is Iraq’s second-largest city with 1 million people.

Iran invaded the Fish Lake area east of Basra on Jan. 9, pouring tens of thousands of troops over the border in a push that came within about six miles of Basra.

Iran and Iraq often give conflicting accounts of their war, which began in September, 1980. The claims are impossible to independently verify.

The Iraqi News Agency said Defense Minister Adnan Khairallah, a general and deputy commander of the armed forces, sent a telegram to President Saddam Hussein to announce the “clear-cut victory.”

“By throwing the enemy away from the lake, Iraqi armed forces liberated our territory from their filth,” said Khairallah.

State television said Iraqi troops “liberated an area which the Iranians intended to use as a bridgehead for occupation of Basra.” It showed film segments of Iranian dead sprawled behind earthen fortifications.

The Iranians, however, reportedly still hold significant chunks of territory in the area.

“It’s a significant push forward . . ., clearly a very good counterattack,” said a Western analyst in Baghdad, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

He said if Iraqi claims prove true, their forces would have recaptured “a sixth of the area into which the Iranians had encroached.”

Iranian reports on the fighting Saturday, monitored in Nicosia, Cyprus, said Iraqi soldiers “tried to infiltrate Iranian positions” but were defeated, suffering 3,000 casualties.