Iraqi Jets Attack Ship in Gulf, Kill 9 in Raid on Tehran

Iraqi warplanes struck Tehran on Tuesday, killing nine people in the ninth air attack on the Iranian capital this month, Iran said. Missile-firing Iraqi jets also hit at least one civilian ship in the Persian Gulf.

Invading Iraqi planes swept over the Iranian capital at 1:30 a.m., firing at least one rocket into the city before returning to their base, Iran’s official news agency reported.

The agency, in a dispatch monitored in Beirut, said nine people were killed in the air raid and 30 were wounded.

In Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, the military command confirmed the air attack on Tehran and added that its warplanes mounted “devastating” raids on six other Iranian cities. It made no mention of casualties.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati sent a letter Tuesday to his Indian counterpart, Khorshid Alam Khan, blaming Iraq for the failure to reach a lasting accord to end military attacks on civilian targets, the Iranian news agency said.

In New York, U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar again urged both countries to end the “unconscionable carnage” of their 4 1/2-year-old war and seek a negotiated settlement.

But the Iraqi military announced another attack on commercial shipping in the Persian Gulf, saying its jets struck two ships with air-to-surface missiles near Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil terminal.

The shipping insurers Lloyd’s of London said the 14,650-ton Panamanian-registered bulk carrier Cape Gwadar was hit, but Lloyd’s had no confirmation of a second attack. If the other attack is confirmed, it would raise to 12 the number of commercial vessels struck by both sides’ air forces in the gulf this year.

Marine salvage executives said the Iraqi Exocet missile started a fire in the Cape Gwadar’s engine room that was brought under control by salvage tugboats 12 hours later. U.S. Navy and Saudi Arabian military helicopters picked up all the crew members and took them to the Saudi port of Jubayl, the salvage executives said.

Iraq has declared the area around Kharg Island off limits to commercial shipping in an attempt to reduce the oil exports Iran uses to finance its war effort. Despite the Iraqi report, some shipping sources said the Cape Gwadar was in the central gulf, well outside the war zone, when it was attacked.

Exocets, supplied to Iraq by France, are water-skimming, heat-seeking missiles that pilots fire from long distance after detecting the target with radar.

In London, Jane’s Defense Weekly, the respected military affairs magazine, reported that Iran has been using Soviet-made SS-1 Scud-B ground-to-ground missiles to strike at Baghdad.

The magazine said four of the Soviet-supplied missiles have been fired at the Iraqi capital, but Iran said Monday that it has fired five missiles at Baghdad and added that the weapons are of its own manufacture.

Iran has claimed five missile hits on the Iraqi capital in the last two weeks in retaliation for increasing Iraqi air raids on its cities and on shipping bound for Iran. Baghdad has been shaken by a number of sizable explosions recently, but the Iraqi regime has generally blamed them on saboteurs.

Jane’s said the Soviet-made missiles have been fired from a mobile transporter. Each Scud missile is capable of carrying a 1,000-pound warhead up to 200 miles.

Western intelligence analysts have said they believe that the Soviet Union is arming both sides, but Moscow has denied supplying arms to the Iranians.

The Soviet Union’s Scud missiles are sold, however, to Libya, Syria and North Korea--three nations sympathetic to Iran, the magazine said, implying that those countries may have passed the weapons on to the Iranians.