New Iran Offensive Against Iraq May Be Near, Diplomats Say

A quarter of a million Iranians are dug in east of Iraq’s battered city of Basra, poised for an offensive that diplomats believe may settle the outcome of the seven-year-old Persian Gulf War.

What Iran calls its “unprecedented mobilization” has drawn world attention away from the so-called tanker war, which brought scores of Western warships to the gulf, and toward an expected bloody land clash likely to involve more than 1 million combatants.

“The land battle could decide whether Iran wins the war; the tanker war cannot,” an Arab diplomat in Abu Dhabi said.

Military and diplomatic sources throughout the gulf region say the offensive, forecast on Nov. 12 by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, is now imminent.

Some experts think an offensive timed to coincide with this week’s U.S.-Soviet summit would be a powerful reminder to the superpowers of their failure to end the war.

Baghdad dailies have announced “the expected Iranian aggression on Iraqi territories,” and the Defense Ministry newspaper said Saturday that Iraqi armed forces are on full alert.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has visited forward lines to check troop deployment and morale. And Baghdad political sources said this alone indicates that he sees an Iranian attack as imminent.

They said he had concentrated on southern front positions, signaling that Iraq expects the battered southern port of Basra to be Iran’s prime target once again.

Iranian forces have been dug in just 12 miles from the outskirts of Basra since a failed offensive in February.

The sources said Iran has up to 300,000 men near Basra. A Baghdad diplomat said Iraq has about 250,000 men there, settled in prepared positions and supported by tanks, artillery and the 450-warplane Iraqi air force.