GRINDING ON

Iran's Kerbala 5 offensive has evidently run out of steam. It started on 8 January, to the surprise of the Iraqis, lasted rather longer than is usual for Iranian assaults and made significant territorial gains (at least according to the snail's pace of advance which characterises this bloody war). Then, from about the fourth week onwards, the Iraqis put some of their best troops into a counter-attack, regained a quarter of the debris-strewn wasteland they had lost and definitively halted Kerbala 5 in its tracks.