Iraq Attacks Iran, Claims It Recaptured Territory

Iraq said it mounted an offensive Friday, recapturing land that the Iranians had taken early in their nearly 8-year-old war. Iran acknowledged losing ground in heavy fighting and accused the Iraqis of using chemical weapons.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the revolutionary patriarch, said in Tehran that Iran’s acceptance last week of a U.N. cease-fire resolution is not merely “a tactic.” But Tehran radio, monitored in Cyprus, also quoted him as saying:

“My revolutionary children, you should not think that the war has come to an end. Arm yourselves with the weapons of faith and holy war.”

In New York, Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar said he has invited the two countries’ foreign ministers to U.N. headquarters early this week for separate meetings on implementation of the Security Council resolution. Iraq said Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz will go but will insist on direct talks.

The Iranians have rejected direct talks for U.N.-mediated negotiations.

The official Iraqi news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying Iraq was ready to receive a technical team appointed by Perez de Cuellar to arrange for the cease-fire after it visits Tehran. Iran has approved of the visit planned for last weekend.

Resolution 598, backed by Iraq shortly after the U.N. Security Council adopted it on July 20 of last year, was not accepted by Iran until last Monday.

Despite the peace efforts, fighting raged.

A military communique read on Iraqi television said: “We retook whatever was left of our land from the Iranians” in an offensive named “In God We Trust 4.” It said the victory “will accelerate the achievement of peace through the signing of a genuine peace treaty via direct talks.”

Baghdad’s official Iraqi News Agency said President Saddam Hussein returned from the front after “personally supervising” the offensive.

Iraqi forces captured “thousands of enemy troops and immense quantities of supplies and weapons,” the agency said, quoting a military communique.

State television in Baghdad said Iraqi planes flew 321 sorties, “inflicting huge losses.”

Civilian Killed

Tehran radio said some bombs hit a village, killing a civilian and destroying a school and houses. The radio said Iran’s air force bombed Iraqi troop concentrations, inflicting “substantial losses.”

Iraq identified the area it took as the Saif Saad region, a disputed area 125 miles northeast of Baghdad claimed by Iraq under a 1975 agreement between the two countries. The Iraqi agency said the fighting occurred along 105 miles of the central border region.

Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency, also monitored in Nicosia, Cyprus, said Iraq used chemical weapons to capture what it described as the Iranian border villages of Khosrowvi, Qasr-e-Shirin and Sar-e-Pol-e Zahab.

It revised the report later, deleting references to Khosrowvi and saying Iraqis who advanced on Sar-e-Pol-e Zahab were “forced to retreat.” It said Iranian forces managed to halt the enemy advances in some areas and heavy fighting continued Friday evening southeast of Mehran, an Iranian border city.

Deaths Denied

The Iranian report claimed that 7,000 Iraqi soldiers were killed, but the communique released in Baghdad denied it.

Iran said the Iraqis used chemical weapons that killed more than 60 people and wounded 800. Iraq did not respond to the charge.

The Iraqis have acknowledged previous use of such weapons but claim that Iran introduced them in the war. Iran has denied ever using chemical weapons.

Tehran radio said 100 Iraqi tanks were destroyed in the fighting. Iran claimed to have shot down two Iraqi warplanes, but Iraq denied it.

Prisoners Taken

According to the Baghdad communique, the elite Presidential Guards and the 2nd Army Corps crushed the Iranian defenders and took thousands of them “into Iraqi hospitality.” It said many prisoners were taken to equalize the number held by each side before peace talks begin.

The International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva says Iraq holds about 13,000 prisoners and Iran approximately 50,000. The four members of a U.N. team that is to investigate the situation of prisoners conferred at Red Cross headquarters Friday, the eve of their scheduled departure for the Persian Gulf.

U.N. Resolution 598 provides for a cease-fire, withdrawal to recognized borders, prisoner exchange, peace negotiations and an investigation of which side started the war.

Until last Monday, the Iranians had said no truce could take effect until Iraq is branded the aggressor. Iraq invaded Iran in September, 1980, after several border skirmishes.

In a series of operations over the last two months, Iraq has reported retaking large chunks of territory from the Iranians, including the Faw peninsula and the area east of the port city of Basra.