The World - News from Jan. 29, 1987

Iraq and Iran said they escalated attacks on each other’s cities. The Iraqi high command said its warplanes inflicted heavy damage in raids on eight Iranian cities and scored an “accurate and effective” hit on a “large naval target”--Iraq’s term for a supertanker or cargo vessel--off the Iranian coast. Iran said it shelled 18 Iraqi border cities in retaliation for the Iraqi air strikes, inflicting heavy damage on military and economic targets. Iran also claimed that it downed an Iraqi warplane east of Basra and that its soldiers killed 1,500 enemy troops in assaults on Iraqi positions east of Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city.