Iran, Iraq Continue Cycle of Death : Artillery Fire Leads to More Coffins, Retaliatory Missiles

Thirteen slender coffins mounted atop orange and white taxis and draped in the Iraqi flag led a funeral procession through this provincial capital Monday, unnecessary proof that the short truce in the “war of the cities” between Iran and Iraq had been shattered once more.

“We will continue hammering on their heads until the Iranians submit,” blared loudspeakers along the path of the funeral cortege, which was joined by about 5,000 government workers and schoolchildren here in the heart of Iraqi Kurdistan, 160 miles northeast of Baghdad.

According to Ali Jafar Barzanchi, the governor of the city, the 13 were killed by Iranian shelling of the town of Halabja, 40 miles southeast of here. Nine more people in Kurdistan were killed when Iranian shells hit other villages near the border, he said.

Informal Truce

The missile and artillery attacks came little more than two days after an informal truce in the latest round of the war of the cities--bombardment of civilian areas that began in 1985. Iraq, which fired 68 missiles at Tehran in two weeks, offered the truce initially, and Iran, which fired more than 30 missiles of its own, agreed to stop the attacks Friday afternoon. But the actions of both sides have made it clear that the cycle of retaliation leaves little chance for any cease-fire to last long.

Iran also reported heavy fighting Monday in an area north of Sulaymaniyah, with more than 1,000 Iraqi troops killed or wounded in an offensive that the Iranians have dubbed “Jerusalem III.” The Iraqis made no official mention of the reported battle, but it is clear to analysts in Baghdad that Kurdistan is becoming the focus of the war, now that the southern front around Basra appears to be stalemated.

It is characteristic of the often shifting nature of the Iran-Iraq conflict that a group of reporters spent six hours in the Sulaymaniyah area Monday without hearing of a major battle in progress near the city.

A tour of city hospitals, however, found two busloads of wounded Iraqi soldiers in blue and white pajamas waiting at an emergency entrance to one hospital, apparently evacuated from a war front nearby, judging from the freshness of their wounds.

Army officials took the reporters to a second, sandbagged hospital to see civilians who had been wounded in the shelling of Halabja. They included a number of badly wounded women and children.

Dr. Latif Amin, the chief of public health for the city, said that 13 people also had been killed by Iranian shells that hit Sulaymaniyah on Friday, just minutes before the truce began.

He said that about 70 people were wounded in Sunday’s shelling and that new casualties were arriving hourly from Halabja.

Amin also said that the wounded could not travel to Sulaymaniyah at night, an acknowledgment that the roads around the provincial capital remain unsafe because of guerrilla activity by Kurdish groups loyal to Iran.

In fact, a tour of the area showed that Iraq’s army has erected guard posts every few hundred yards along the main highways. Even in daylight, a helicopter pilot chose to hug the curve of the road closely.

The reporters were taken by bus to Darbandikhan, site of a huge dam that had been targeted by Iranian artillery. While the dam is intact, the town itself had been shelled heavily during the day, and most shops were closed.

Eight people were killed in the shelling of Darbandikhan, according to the governor, Hoshman Mustafa.

Iraq cited the weekend victims of Iranian artillery in Kurdistan as justification for its decision to resume missile attacks on Tehran. It fired one missile into the Iranian capital as a “warning” Sunday night and followed up by firing six more on Monday.

Later in the day, the Iraqi command said that its warplanes also attacked “economic and military targets” in the western Iranian towns of Kermanshah, Ilam, Sar-e Pol-e Zahab, Gilan-e Gharb, Dezful and Shushtar.

In Tehran, Iran said at least 20 people were killed in the missile attacks. Iran said it retaliated by firing two missiles at Baghdad, while the Iraqi authorities reported that only one hit the capital.

Iranian shelling was reported to be intense along the length of the Iran-Iraq border, especially in the southern Iraqi port city of Basra.

“The continuation of Iranian shelling of residential areas means that we will go on attacking not only Tehran but also other Iranian towns,” an Iraqi military spokesman said.

Darbandikhan, which is high in the mountains of the Kurdistan region only 15 miles from the frontier with Iran, was teeming with Iraqi soldiers Monday.

Like an Alpine Resort

Were it not for the war, the area could easily pass for an Alpine resort, with enormous mountains looming over a crystal-clear, man-made lake and miles of verdant farmland in the distance.

Most Kurdish males, who dress in baggy gray trousers with a wide sash and wear the traditional checked turban of gray and white, appeared to give the heavily armed soldiers a wide berth. Clearly, Kurdistan’s animosity toward outside troops is fairly deep-seated.

The sound of Katyusha rocket fire hitting the town and its environs was a constant refrain during an hourlong visit, although the visible damage was confined to a few houses whose roofs had been knocked in. An effort by reporters to walk the streets of the town was discouraged by army escorts.

Concern about the safety of the region was also apparent with the heavy military escort that accompanied the reporters throughout the trip--a truck-mounted anti-aircraft gun followed by two truckloads of troops.

A planned visit to a town north of Sulaymaniyah was canceled at the last minute. A local commander, who conferred with other officers before cutting short the trip, said only that it was “very dangerous,” the only indication that a battle might have taken place.