Iran Advances to Within Sight of Kuwait

Iranian troops, supported by helicopter gunships, pushed farther along southern Iraq’s Al Faw Peninsula, a war communique said Sunday, and foreign journalists said they could see Kuwaiti territory from Iranian forward positions.

The Iraqi news agency reported from Baghdad that some of the heaviest fighting of the 5 1/2-year-old war was being waged as Iran’s week-old Dawn 8 offensive moved deeper into Iraq.

Tehran radio quoted the Iranian communique as saying that Iran’s troops attacked under cover of darkness again Saturday night and advanced several miles toward the Iraqi naval port of Ranya Umm al Qasr.

The port lies up the Khawr Allah channel bordering Kuwait and is 35 miles west of the abandoned Iraqi oil port of Al Faw, captured by Iran on Tuesday.

The Tehran war communique said Iran now controls 322 square miles of Iraqi territory on the west bank of the Shatt al Arab waterway.

Foreign journalists visiting Al Faw on Saturday said it was under Iran’s full control with many troops present.

The journalists were also taken four miles west of Al Faw, where they said they could clearly see Kuwait’s Bubiyan Island in the Khawr Allah channel.

Foreign diplomats said the offensive close to Kuwait indicated that Iran was backing away from a purely diplomatic approach to separating Iraq from its Persian Gulf Arab supporters.

Kuwait Worried

Meanwhile, the foreign ministers of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia arrived in the Syrian capital of Damascus in an effort agree on a way to halt Tehran’s latest offensive.

Kuwait is increasingly tense because the offensive is so close to its border, Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheik Sabah al Ahmed al Sabah said after he and the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al Faisal, arrived in Damascus.

Diplomats in Kuwait said the emirate’s forces were on alert amid fears of Kuwait’s being dragged into the conflict. They added, however, that Kuwait was relying mainly on an international diplomatic offensive to prevent a spillover.

Iraq said its warplanes raided the Iranian mainland oil complex at Ganavah on Sunday. It said air strikes were also flown Saturday against Iran’s Kharg Island oil terminal in the northern gulf, southwest of Ganavah.

The Iranian national news agency, in its first such report, said navy “helicopters immobilized the remaining Iraqi gunboats and fleets in Umm al Qasr waters.” Iran says its offensive has locked the Iraqi navy into Ranya Umm al Qasr, the last active gulf port in Iraqi hands.

The Iranian news agency said the latest advance caused 2,700 more Iraqi casualties, bringing the week’s toll to 12,700. Another 2,105 Iraqis are reported to be prisoners of war.

Iranian communiques said five warplanes were shot down over the Al Faw Peninsula on Sunday, bringing the total number of Iraqi aircraft downed since the start of the offensive to 28.

Advancing troops captured 10 Soviet-made T-72 tanks and six T-62 tanks, Tehran radio reported.