Iraqi Jets Raid Iranian Oil Platform in Gulf

Iraqi warplanes destroyed a crowded Iranian oil platform in the central Persian Gulf on Friday, causing casualties and leaving the surrounding sea ablaze, an Iraqi military spokesman and regional shipping sources said.

The attack came several hours after an Iranian missile hit Baghdad, killing a family of seven, wounding 63 other people and demolishing four houses, an Iraqi military spokesman said.

It was the fourth missile Iran has fired at Baghdad since August in the six-year-old war.

Iran’s state-owned news agency said the missile hit “the building of the Iraqi Defense Ministry” and was “a deterrent . . . to prevent further inhuman enemy raids on civilians and economic centers in the Islamic Republic.”

‘Tongues of Fire’

The Iraqi military spokesman said Iraqi warplanes attacked the Sassan field, destroying “oil installations and pumping and loading equipment. . . . Explosions covered the area with smoke and tongues of fire.”

The shipping sources said fire was hampering attempts to rescue an estimated 250 Iranians who had been on or near the Sassan oil platform during the missile attack. Iranian naval and air force personnel were believed to have been among those on the platform during the raid, which was carried out by up to five planes, the sources said.

“Some people have been rescued by a supply boat, but there are casualties,” one shippingsource said.

The platform has crew quarters and a helicopter pad from which Iran has launched attacks on merchant vessels in its so-called tanker war with Iraq, an offshoot of their ground conflict.

Sassan, a producing oil field 400 miles from Iraq, is 75 miles off the Iranian coast and about 85 miles northwest of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

Third Iraqi Strike

It was the third long-distance Iraqi air strike against Iranian oil targets in recent months. In mid-August, Iraqi jets crippled a makeshift terminal off Sirri Island in the southern Gulf.

The sources said Iraqi jets wrecked a platform at Iran’s Rostam field, 10 miles northwest of Sassan, on Oct. 16.

Baghdad said at the time it had raided both fields. But shipping sources said Iraqi jets has missed Sassan and struck an offshore rig in a United Arab Emirates field, killing a Filipino worker.

The sources said Friday’s attack, similar to the previous raids, was probably carried out by French-made Dassault F-1 Mirage jets which were refueled in flight.