U.S. Sending Additional Forces to Gulf

In response to stepped-up tensions in the Persian Gulf, the Defense Department is dispatching additional surveillance equipment and special forces teams to the region, an Administration source said Tuesday.

The equipment and personnel, aimed at combatting terrorists as well as military forces, are in addition to the eight minesweeping helicopters, small mine countermeasure craft and the Missouri battleship group that have recently been dispatched to the gulf to help escort reflagged Kuwaiti supertankers now carrying U.S. registration.

The equipment, which reportedly includes helicopters, is understood to be aimed at neutralizing Iran’s fiberglass speedboats, capable of traveling at 50 knots.

Iranian Revolutionary Guards are believed to have used the speedboats to mine the approaches to the Kuwaiti harbor as well as the area in which the Bridgeton, one of the reflagged tankers, struck a mine July 24 while under escort by U.S. warships.

Along with the personnel, reportedly including more Navy Seal special forces teams, the equipment should also help counter attempts by the Revolutionary Guards to use rocket-propelled grenades fired from speedy rubber dinghies to attack U.S. warships or ships they are convoying.

The guards have made more than a half-dozen such raids in past months, although they went largely unreported in the United States because they were not aimed at American shipping. Pentagon officials want to preclude any further such raids that, like the Bridgeton incident, would embarrass Washington.

Intelligence sources said last week that a flurry of activity by small boats had been detected in the region where the Bridgeton struck the mine on the night before the incident. It was deemed insufficient evidence at the time to turn back the convoy, but subsequent analyses have led to the conclusion that the small boats were in fact sowing mines.

That activity was presumably detected by U.S. surveillance equipment already on the scene. The new equipment and manpower will add to that capability.

Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger told a breakfast meeting with reporters that he could not say when the U.S. buildup in the gulf will end.

“As soon as you (stop), some other anticipated risk may happen and everyone will say, ‘But you didn’t have enough resources,’ ” Weinberger said.

Earlier this week, Defense Department officials disclosed that several minesweeping boats and small attack boats would be sent to the gulf aboard the amphibious transport ship Raleigh. They said the ship would arrive in the region in about a month.

The minesweepers will complement eight Navy helicopters that were dispatched late last month to help clear the sea lanes of mines presumably placed by Iran.