Ghost Town on the Gulf

Khorramshahr was once a bustling port with a population of 150,000. Weeks of fierce house-to-house fighting between Iran's fanatical Revolutionary Guards and Iraqi infantrymen have turned it into a ghost town, as its inhabitants have fled inland to the safety of mountain camps or bolted across the contested Shatt al Arab waterway to seek refuge in Basra. On a tour of Khorramshahr last week, TIME Correspondent William Drozdiak found very few signs of life; emaciated dogs foraged for scraps in the rubble, swarthy Iraqi soldiers lounged in the shade as they listened to the echo of sporadic shelling in what was left of Abadan (pop. 300,000), seven miles away. Drozdiak's report:

Iraq now has uncontested control of Khorramshahr, up to the banks of the Karun River. But the seemingly endless rows of pockmarked or gutted houses provide vivid proof that the door-to-door fighting was bitter and bloody. Iraqi soldiers recount with incredulity how Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini's zealous guardsmen, after their ammunition was exhausted, persisted in fighting to the death with sticks and knives. Said an Iraqi major who conducted some of the mop-up operations: "They were crazy. Many of them wore a gold key around their necks. They said they were told by Khomeini that the key would unlock the door to heaven in the next life."

Pushed across the Karun River by the Iraqi onslaught, some Revolutionary Guards tried to sneak back under cover of darkness to set up sniper posts and slay as many Iraqi soldiers as they could, until they were flushed out. The Iraqis say they have now set up security patrols that will shoot anything that moves on the banks of the Karun. Boasts a brigadier general: "Not even a rat can get across the water now."

Along the bumpy roads leading from the Iraqi border to Khorramshahr, trees and broken telephone poles are strewn alongside the wreckage of burnt vehicles. At Khorramshahr's gutted railroad station, Iraqi soldiers use wall portraits of Ayatullah Khomeini for target practice. At the huge port sprawling along the Shatt al Arab, stacks of mammoth loading containers, stripped of their spoils by Iraqi invaders, are tangled with rusted steel pipes and charred, broken cranes. In makeshift barracks built under pylons, a few off-duty soldiers nap or thumb through magazines to pass the idle time.

On the roof of an abandoned post office at the edge of the Karun River, Iraqi soldiers point to Iranian outposts a few hundred yards away. In the distance, thick plumes of smoke arise from the burning oil refinery at Abadan. An Iraqi private describes how the remaining Iranian defenders have split into three-and four-man sniper squads. Some of the squads have attempted "hit and run" mortar assaults from the south bank of the Karun. An Iraqi general predicts that Abadan could fall within a week, depending on the intransigence of the Iranian holdouts and the willingness of the Iraqis to take sizable losses.

"We have them surrounded on four sides, with some of our troops only one or two kilometers away from the town's center," says the general, waving his swagger stick for emphasis. "We have cut all supplies, and we think we can starve them into surrendering. But if necessary, we are ready to commit our ground forces to take Abadan as soon as we get orders from Baghdad." He takes a swig of fruit juice, wipes his mouth, and rubs his hands with relish. "And then," he adds with a serene smile, "victory will come at last."

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