Iraqis Bomb Unfinished A-Plant in Iran
Iraqi warplanes raided an unfinished Iranian nuclear power plant today, killing 11 people, including a West German engineer, Radio Tehran said.
Iraq said its air force also struck twice at an industrial facility that it hinted was engaged in making and storing chemical weapons.
The Baghdad government also claimed that Iraqi ground troops crushed an overnight assault by Iranian troops in the central sector of the war front along their 730-mile common border.
The 7-year-old war recently has heated up, with Iran threatening a major assault on Iraq.
Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency reported the air strike on the nuclear plant and accused Iraq of violating “international conventions” by attacking the unfinished facility.
The president of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Reza Amrollahi, sent an “urgent protest note” to Hans Blix, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, the news agency reported.
It quoted Amrollahi as saying there was “nuclear material” at the plant at the time of the raid and asking Blix to rush a team of experts to the scene to monitor the effects of the attack.
He said the attack might lead to “the same trans-frontier radioactive release and radiological consequences as the Chernobyl nuclear accident.”
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