Iraq Forces Push Deep Into Iran : 30-Mile Advance Triggers Tehran Plea for Volunteers

NICOSIA, Cyprus — In an apparent effort to bolster its crumbling defenses, Iran appealed for volunteers to rush to the battlefront Saturday after an Iraqi offensive pushed deeper into Iranian territory in advance of a U.N.-sponsored armistice in the Iran-Iraq War.

Later, a military spokesman said in Baghdad that Iraq was pulling its troops back from a salient in southern Iran and would eventually do the same elsewhere along the front.

“According to principles and plans performed by our armed forces, units of the 3rd Army Corps started the withdrawal this (Saturday) afternoon from . . . Iran’s southern field headquarters to their original positions” east of Basra, the spokesman said. “The policy of withdrawing our forces to their original positions will be applied according to a defined timetable on other war sectors.”

Hand-to-Hand Fighting Told

Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency said the Iraqis had pushed to within 24 miles of Ahvaz, an important regional center and capital of Khuzistan province in southern Iran. It said that hand-to-hand fighting took place in the area, about 30 miles inside Iranian territory.

Iraqi Information Minister Latif Jasim confirmed in Baghdad that the Iraqis had crossed the border, saying that the move was made necessary by the dynamics of “military operations.”

He denied that Iraq’s goal was to seize territory, saying that the incursion is “only temporary and accompanied by no ambitions or premeditated intentions against the Iranian people or their land.”

Iraq launched the offensive along a wide front Friday, five days after Iran announced that it was prepared to accept a cease-fire ordered by the United Nations a year ago.

Part of Overall Strategy

Iraqi statements since the start of the new fighting have made it clear that Baghdad’s intention is to recapture Iraqi land still held by Iran and to take as many prisoners as possible to exchange later for Iraqis held prisoner by the Tehran government. On Saturday, Baghdad said that 8,500 Iranians had been captured in the new offensive.

It was also clear that by actually threatening the integrity of Iranian territory, Iraq will have an important bargaining chip when negotiations take place over the location of the international border between the two countries.

Iran and Iraq have both agreed to send their foreign ministers to New York this week to begin discussions with U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar on the implementation of a truce.

Iran’s immediate concern, however, shifted from the forthcoming peace talks to the collapsing condition of its defenses in the wake of its acceptance of the U.N. cease-fire demand. Diplomats said that morale in the army, already low because of a string of losses, had undoubtedly plunged when the nation’s spiritual guide and perceived supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, broadcast a virtual capitulation speech last Wednesday.

Tehran Radio broadcast an appeal Saturday for all “able-bodied Iranians” to rush to the front to counter Iraq’s latest drive.

“The General Command staff seriously wants all the trained forces that are ready to go to the fronts to apply immediately to resistance bases for rapid dispatch,” the radio said.

Western analysts suggested that the appeal was aimed more at giving the impression that Iranian defenses were not collapsing, something that could endanger the government in Tehran, than at a serious desire to fight the Iraqis.

Chemical Weapons Charge

IRNA continued to insist that the Iraqis were employing chemical weapons along the central sector of the battlefront, east of Baghdad, saying that two villages were hit Saturday by poison gas and that a large number of villagers suffered wounds.

In the Shalamcheh region east of Basra, the attacking Iraqi troops were reported by the Iranians to have been repulsed, “with hundreds of Iraqi soldiers scattered on the battlefield.”

Meanwhile, Iraq accused the Iranians of shelling the northern city of Sulaymaniyah, killing three civilians and wounding four others.