Iran Bombs Baghdad as ‘War of Cities’ Heats Up

Iran and Iraq bombarded each other’s capitals and other towns Thursday in one of the fiercest exchanges in their “war of the cities.” Scores of people were reported killed and wounded.

The deadly duel erupted at dawn after Iran said that squadrons of its warplanes bombed Baghdad twice in the first air raids on the Iraqi capital in more than two years.

The official Iraqi News Agency said that only one Iranian jet got through to Baghdad and that it was shot down by an Iraqi interceptor inside Iran after being driven away from the capital by heavy anti-aircraft fire.

But Iran’s official IRNA news agency, monitored in Nicosia, said Iranian jets penetrated “sophisticated radar and anti-aircraft defenses” ringing the Iraqi capital to “heavily bomb selected targets,” scoring “accurate hits.”

IRNA said all the jets returned safely to their bases but did not say how many were involved in the attacks or give any details of their targets.

After the raids, Iraq loosed four long-range missiles against Tehran and seven others at the cities of Karaj, Esfahan and Tabriz and the holy city of Qom, the Iraqi News Agency reported.

It was one of the most widespread missile barrages the Iraqis have unleashed since the latest bout of the so-called war of the cities began Feb. 29.

Iran said Iraqi warplanes also bombed Tabriz and nine other cities in western Iran. In retaliation, the Iranians said, they fired two missiles into Baghdad and battered the southern ports of Basra and Umm al Qasr, an Iraqi naval base, with 13 short-range missiles, as well as bombs and artillery fire.

IRNA said that other formations of Iranian warplanes attacked Iraqi troop concentrations north of Basra and other areas in the southern front, as well as a headquarters of the National Liberation Army, an Iraqi-based dissident movement seeking to topple the Tehran regime, in the northern Diyala region.

Iran’s air force has been badly depleted by combat losses and a chronic shortage of spare parts. Outnumbered by about 8 to 1 by Iraq’s powerful air force, it has not raided Baghdad since early 1986. But in recent months it has become increasingly aggressive.