"When I hear the announcement of Saddam's death, it will be the best day of my life," said 23-year-old Abolhassan Khanafereh, whose ancestors crossed Aravandroud (Shatt Al-Arab) waterway 200 years ago to settle in the city of Abadan.

"But the Americans and the British are non-believers, just like Saddam," he added with an accent that betrays Arab ancestry.

The crisis has caused the the pro-Iraqi feeling of the Arabic-speaking population in the border province of Khuzistan to rise.

"We are not defending Saddam the dictator, but the innocent Iraqi people," said Abdol-Reza al-Bokhnou, an Iraqi pedlar who fled to Iran during the 1991 Gulf War.

"If the Americans and the British topple Saddam, we fear they would replace him by worse than him," he said.

He also lashed out at Iran's religious leaders because they have refrained from issuing decrees approving jihad, or holy war, against "the aggressors." Southern Iraq's population is predominantly Shiite Muslim, like Iran's.

"Some of the Arabs in the province hope for a Saddam victory and they believe that Khuzistan belongs to Iraq," said Ramin. "I cannot understand how it's possible to like the Iraqi dictator."

Iran has closed its border with Iraq and stated its neutrality in the conflict. It deployed tanks alongside the Aravandroud, which marks the border, their guns pointed toward Iraq.

On the first day of the war, a missile fired by the US-led coalition hit a storage building of Abadan's refinery, but no other incident has been reported since.

In Khoramshahr, the memories of Iraq's year-and-a-half occupation of the city are still vivid, 15 years after the end of the 1980-1988 with with Iraq.

Many houses are in ruins, while destroyed and rusting Iraqi tanks are left around the roads of the region as a reminder of the conflict that cost hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides.

Columns of smoke can be seen rising far away, from oil wells and trenches filled with oil set on fire by the Iraqis around Basra, some 30 kilometresmiles) from Khoramshahr. Helicopters of the coalition can be spotted and jets heard.

"My father spends more than 20 hours a day monitoring the war, switching between Iranian television, Arab channels like Al-Arabia and Al-Jazeera and international radios," said Rahman, a trader.

"On the first days of the war, we were constantly awakened by sounds of explosions, but today there are less," said a worker in a petrochemical factory, Ali Nourian.

"Why didn't the authorities distribute gas masks? In Kuwait, the government distributed six million masks for a two million population. The authorities here are doing nothing," said Mostapha, a taxi driver.

But city governor Ali Shir-Ali said "there is no reason to worry."

"According to our military experts, even if the Iraqis use chemical weapons, the toxic cloud would not reach the city; but if there is a threat, we will tell the population immediately and take the necessary measures," he added.

The authorities have stepped up security anyway. On the road between Ahwaz and Khoramshahr road blocks have increased and cars were thoroughly searched.

SPACE.WIRE