Iran Reports Biggest Troop Buildup

TEHRAN — Iran has more troops mustered on the central and southern sectors of the Persian Gulf War front than at any time in its five-year-old conflict with Iraq, the newspaper Kayhan on Saturday quoted a senior commander as saying.

“As everyone sees, marchers to Karbala (a holy city in Iraq south of Baghdad) are setting off for the fronts every day,” the paper quoted Ali Shamkhani, first deputy commander of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guards Corps, as saying.

“From west to south, we now have the highest level of forces ever during the war,” he told a seminar in the northern city of Rasht.

Diplomats say it is almost impossible to gauge the number of Iranian fighters at the front. Estimates range from 500,000 to 2 million. Independent observers are generally barred from the war zone.

Iran called for volunteers nearly three months ago to build up front-line forces as a show of strength and to warn Iraq not to carry its attacks on economic targets too far.

But Iranian officials say they will not launch a new offensive unless Iraq forces them to, by an action such as cutting off Iranian oil sales through continued air raids on the main oil terminal at Kharg Island.