Iranians on Launches Set Fire to Freighter

Iranian Revolutionary Guards with high speed launches attacked a small Qatari freighter in the northern Persian Gulf on Friday, setting it ablaze and injuring three crewmen.

Regional shipping sources said the Iranians fired at least 10 rocket-propelled grenades into the 2,596-ton Rashidah. A spokesman for the ship’s owners said that the crew was able to douse the flames, adding that a Saudi Arabian navy vessel transferred the injured to a hospital in Saudi Arabia.

The Rashidah was en route from Qatar to Kuwait with a cargo of iron rods for the construction industry when it was hit at a location about midway between the Kuwaiti coastline and the Iranian port of Bushehr.

Shipping sources said the attack seemed to be another case of Iran singling out vessels trading with Kuwait in retaliation for that country’s support for Baghdad in the Iran-Iraq War.