IRAN REPORTS HEAVY FIGHTING IN IRAQI KURDISTAN
Iran said its troops repulsed heavy Iraqi
counter-attacks and continued their advance through the rugged
mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan in overnight fighting on the
northern war front.
    Iran launched the new offensive, codenamed Karbala-7, on
Tuesday night among the snow-capped peaks of the Haj Omran
border area of northeast Iraq.
    The Iranian news agency IRNA, received in London, said the
troops "continued their successful advance ... With more thrusts
into enemy positions."
    It said "remnants of Iraqi Brigade 604 was shattered and 200
of its personnel killed or wounded." One battalion of the 25th
Division's Third Brigade thrown into counter-attacks today
suffered 70 pct losses, the agency added. Some 208 prisoners of
war had been taken from the front.
    IRNA said the Iranian forces backed by heavy artillery fire
were continuing to advance. No Iranian casualties were given.
    The area between Haj Omran and the Kurdish town of Rawandiz
some 65 km inside Iraq was the scene of heavy fighting in 1983.
Iran has backed dissident Kurds in the area in attacks on
government positions and installations in northern Iraq.
    IRNA said the Iranian forces captured large amounts of
munitions in the latest fighting.
    The Iraqis have made no comment so far on the Kurdistan
fighting, or on advances Tehran reported yesterday on the
southern war front east of the strategic Iraqi port of Basra.
    IRNA said today a group of its reporters visited
newly-captured areas on the southern front and found the
battlefield littered with the bodies of Iraqi soldiers and
burnt military equipment.
    They quoted an Iranian soldier, Hamid Dehqani, as saying
heavy rainfall during the past few days "had paralysed the Iraqi
enemy from embarking on any action" against the attacking
Iranians.
    IRNA referred to the "Fish Canal" -- the man-made Fish Lake
-- made by the Iraqis as a defensive barrier on the eastern
side of the Shatt al-Arab waterway.
    The agency yesterday said infantry and armour of the
Revolutionary Guards had captured strong defences west of the
canal in bitter fighting with Iraqi troops.
 REUTER
