Iraqis Report Big Victory on Faw Peninsula

Government forces claimed a major victory Sunday in their first major attempt to retake the Iranian-controlled Faw Peninsula, routing heavily entrenched Iranian troops and bolstering their hold on the strategic southern strip of Iraqi territory.

An Iraqi high command spokesman interrupted regular programming on state-run Iraqi radio and television to announce news of a big victory to a background of patriotic victory songs.

The Iraqi News Agency said Iraqi forces captured a 25-square-mile area about 15 miles from the port of Al Faw. It said coastal areas running parallel to the area also were “completely liberated.” Al Faw is 350 miles southeast of Baghdad and 50 miles south of the heavily defended southern Iraqi port of Basra.

“The forces of the 7th Brigade and the Republican Guards are advancing, shouting ‘Allahu Akbar!’ (God is Great!),” Baghdad Radio reported.

Denial by Iranians

Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency, monitored in Cyprus, denied the Iraqi claim, saying the attackers were driven back by Iranian Revolutionary Guards with hundreds of Iraqi casualties.

In Baghdad, women and children--one estimate put the crowd as high as half a million people--took to the streets to celebrate as word of the victory spread, witnesses in the Iraqi capital said. Men fired machine guns and other weapons from rooftops to salute the victory, the witnesses said.

A correspondent for the Iraqi News Agency reported seeing the bodies of thousands of Iranian troops on the battlefield and said that large numbers also were captured.

Use of Poison Gas Charged

Tehran radio reported “heavy fighting” in the Al Faw area Sunday evening and claimed that Iraqi forces were using internationally banned chemical weapons against the Iranian forces there.

Western diplomats said Iraq had been expecting another Iranian offensive on the peninsula last winter in a bid to cut the road link between Iraq and Kuwait. But the expected Iranian offensive did not materialize, probably because Iran lacked sufficient troops.

Political analysts said the Iraqis concentrated their troops on the peninsula in anticipation of the Iranian offensive. When it did not materialize, Iraq sensed an Iranian weakness and decided to launch an offensive of its own, the analysts said.