Iran Targets Iraqi Capital; War Focus Shifts to Land

An Iranian missile slammed into a residential area of Baghdad on Friday, killing and wounding several people, as the focus of the Iran-Iraq War shifted from shipping in the Persian Gulf to the battle on land.

Iran said the attack, launched in retaliation for Iraqi air strikes this week on Iranian civilian targets, was aimed at an Iraqi air force building. Tehran also threatened more strikes if Baghdad continues its “mischief against Iran.”

The Iraqi armed forces, in a statement carried on state-run Baghdad radio, said several people were killed and injured when an Iranian surface-to-surface missile plunged into a residential neighborhood of the capital at 1 a.m. local time.

Area Sealed Off

Police sealed off the area, but from a distance, reporters could see a billowing column of smoke. Ambulances and fire trucks, their sirens wailing, were seen heading toward the site.

Iran has fired more than 30 missiles into the Iraqi capital since war broke out in September, 1980. Western diplomats have identified the missiles as Scud-Bs, which have a range of 185 miles and can carry warheads of up to 900 pounds. Baghdad is about 80 miles west of the border.

The Iraqi statement also vowed to avenge the attack, the first on Baghdad since Oct. 13, when a similar Iranian strike left more than 30 people dead and 300 wounded.

The attack on Baghdad came amid an intensified round of bombing and shelling, moving the focus of the hostilities away from the waters of the gulf to the war front. The last confirmed attack on independent shipping in the gulf, where U.S. warships are protecting Kuwaiti tankers, was on Oct. 24.

On Friday, the reflagged Kuwaiti tanker Gas Princess moved down the gulf under the escort of the guided missile frigate Ford in the 14th convoy since the U.S. operation began last July.

The chief Soviet trouble-shooter in the Middle East, meanwhile, said the Iran-Iraq War will be on the agenda of a planned December summit between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Quoted in Iraqi Paper

Soviet First Deputy Foreign Minister Yuli M. Voronstov made the statement in the Iraqi newspaper Al Thawra, according to the official Iraqi News Agency.

Voronstov, trying to coax Iran and Iraq into accepting a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding a cease-fire, arrived in Kuwait on Friday after two days in Baghdad, where he met with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein for the second time in three months. He was to meet with Kuwait’s foreign minister today, then travel to Iran.