The World - News from Dec. 10, 1987

Iran said its warplanes bombed Iraqi troop concentrations and a munitions depot near Basra, and Iraq said its air force destroyed a sugar refinery in western Iran. The Iranian raids on Abu al Khasib, near the border eight miles east of Basra, came a day after Parliament Speaker Hashemi Rafsanjani said Iran is ready for another major ground offensive against Iraq. An Iranian drive across the border last winter stalled six miles from Basra. An Iraqi military spokesman said the raid on Khaneh that destroyed the sugar refinery “falls within Iraq’s firm and legitimate right to deprive the Iranian regime of any vital establishment that feeds its war machine.”