The World - News from Dec. 28, 1986

Iraqi troops fortified positions east of Basra on a battlefield strewn with the bodies of Iranian soldiers. In a rare move in the Persian Gulf War, reporters were taken to Umm al Rasas Island in the Shatt al Arab waterway, where they saw dozens of Iranian bodies and light weapons abandoned by the attackers among the palm groves. The official Iraqi News Agency said 32,344 Iranians were killed in an unsuccessful offensive. Iran claimed its forces killed 3,000 Iraqis in what it called a “limited surgical strike.” There was no way to independently verify either country’s figures.