U.N. Urges Halt as Iran, Iraq Trade Missile Shots

NICOSIA, Cyprus —  Iran and Iraq blasted each other’s capitals with missiles, hammered other cities with aircraft raids and fought ground battles along their war front Wednesday.

The U.N. Security Council called for an end to the carnage.

Hundreds were reported killed in the air and ground exchanges, the latest in more than two weeks of almost daily attacks on the two nations’ heaviest population centers.

Tehran’s official IRNA news agency said Revolutionary Guards fired five missiles into the Iraqi capital of Baghdad after more than 70 Iranian civilians were killed in Iraqi missile attacks on Tehran and warplane raids on seven Iranian cities.

The state-run Iraqi News Agency confirmed only three hits on Baghdad and said “many civilians were killed or wounded.” The agency, also monitored in Nicosia, did not give a casualty count but reported seven missiles fired at Tehran.

Iran confirmed that missiles hit the capital and said Iraqi warplanes bombed Bakhtaran, Shiraz and other cities in western Iran. The Iranian agency said 25 civilians were killed and more than 100 wounded in Shiraz alone.

Iraq says it has fired 22 surface-to-surface missiles into the Iranian capital since a two-day truce in the so-called war of the cities broke down late Sunday. Iran has reported launching seven into Baghdad.

Iran also said that Revolutionary Guard ground forces pushed into Sulaymaniyah province, in northeastern Iraq, and seized 95 square miles, including 21 villages, in heavy battles with Iraqi troops.

It said more than 1,150 Iraqis were killed and 800 taken prisoner in the fighting in the mountainous region 160 miles north of Baghdad.

In Switzerland, the Zurich newspaper Neue Zurcher Zeitung quoted Iranian Charge d’Affaires Mohammed Hussein Malaek as saying that his country has cut all ties to the U.N. Security Council.

Malaek also was quoted as saying that only a military solution could end the Persian Gulf conflict and that Iran no longer felt obligated to respect international conventions that are supposed to protect civilians and prisoners in wartime and ban the use of chemical weapons.

The Security Council, meanwhile, demanded an end to the missile attacks on Baghdad and Tehran. It also endorsed another round of negotiations by Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar on implementing the council’s July 20 cease-fire resolution and peace plan for the 7 1/2-year-old war.