Regained 2 Towns in Heavy Fighting, Iranians Report

NICOSIA, Cyprus — Iranian forces regained control Friday of two towns in western Iran that had been the scene of intense fighting over the past three days.

Iran said its forces, made up of soldiers, Revolutionary Guards and volunteers, recaptured Eslamabad and Karand in fierce battles with Iraqi troops and followers of the Moujahedeen, the Iranian rebel movement.

The Moujahedeen said in a statement issued in Baghdad that its units had withdrawn from the area to bases across the border in Iraq.

The Iraqi government has officially denied involvement in the fighting on the central front east of Baghdad, but Western observers said the Moujahedeen probably are not capable of driving deep into Iranian territory on their own.

The Moujahedeen force, known as the National Liberation Army of Iran, was formed a year ago and is reported to have about 10,000 full-time troops fighting for the overthrow of Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The fall of Eslamabad on Wednesday was a severe blow to the Iranian regime, and the fight for the city appeared for a time to threaten the United Nations’ ability to arrange a truce. Eslamabad is 60 miles inside the border and only about 20 miles southwest of Bakhtaran, a city of half a million people.

A Tehran Radio broadcast said the Iranians had pushed the enemy out of Eslamabad early Friday, and from Karand to the northwest, and were heading toward two border villages still held by Iraqi and rebel forces.

4,500 Reported Killed

The broadcast said the Iranians had killed 4,500 of the enemy, which it described as “forces of the Baghdad regime and their hypocritical mercenaries.”

Hashemi Rafsanjani, Speaker of Iran’s Parliament and acting commander in chief of its armed forces, said in Friday prayers at Tehran University that the victory had rid Iran of a “cancer.”

He warned Iraqis that if they decide to continue the war rather than accept the U.N. cease-fire proposal, “they must know our forces are much stronger than before we approved the (U.N.) resolution. With the speed that our forces are rushing to the fronts, we can deliver strong blows to the enemy.”

The Iraqi incursion, the deepest penetration into Iran since 1982, appeared to have galvanized Iran’s defenses at a time when army morale was in sharp decline and resistance seemed to be melting.

Moujahedeen Pullback

The Moujahedeen communique said its forces were withdrawing to their bases in order “to prepare themselves for yet more extensive and more decisive battles to overthrow the Khomeini regime.”

It said that 40,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards had been killed or wounded in the three-day offensive, but diplomats dismissed this figure as a gross exaggeration. The communique said the rebels had destroyed or captured hundreds of Iranian tanks and armored personnel carriers and shot down two warplanes and two helicopters.

The rebel incursion, the third military success of the year, demonstrated that the Moujahedeen are still part of the equation at a time when the two sides are deciding where and how to stop the fighting.

Tentative Acceptance

At the United Nations, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati emerged from his fourth meeting with Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar and announced tentative acceptance of proposals made by the secretary general to end the Iran-Iraq War.

Although he rejected what he called Iraqi preconditions, he said Iran would engage in the direct peace talks demanded by Iraq, but only after the fixing of a cease-fire date, the withdrawal of troops from both sides of the border and the exchange of prisoners.

“Tomorrow we will respond to the secretary general about his new and final proposal,” Velayati said, without giving details of the plan. “The acceptance of Resolution 598 (the July 20, 1987 Security Council call for a cease-fire and peace settlement) and the implementation of the plan of the secretary general is unconditional.”

Perez de Cuellar earlier told reporters that he hopes to be able to fix the date for the cease-fire shortly after the return here Tuesday of a nine-member military and technical team that spent the week in Tehran and moved to Baghdad on Friday.

As of Friday afternoon, Iraqi Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz had yet to make any reply to peace proposals, and he left his third meeting with Perez de Cuellar after only half an hour, refusing to make any comment to the waiting press.

The United Nations said Aziz would return today.

Times staff writer Don Shannon, at the United Nations, contributed to this article.