Navy Copters, Guadalcanal Sighted in Gulf

The amphibious assault ship Guadalcanal, with eight minesweeping helicopters aboard, has arrived in the Persian Gulf to help protect the convoys of Kuwaiti tankers that the U.S. Navy is escorting through the waterway, shipping sources and other observers in the region reported Sunday.

U.S. officials refused to confirm the Guadalcanal’s presence, in line with the Navy’s policy of not commenting on the movements of its warships in the gulf.

But a British television correspondent, Brent Sadler of the Independent Television Network, reported sighting the ship at anchor about 30 miles off the coast of Bahrain on Sunday afternoon.

Through the Strait

Shipping sources speculated that the 18,000-ton Guadalcanal entered the gulf Saturday night through the Strait of Hormuz.

Sadler, in a ship-to-shore telephone conversation from a vessel about a mile away from the Guadalcanal, told reporters in Bahrain that he could see some of the ship’s Sea Stallion helicopters taking off and landing in what were evidently minesweeping exercises.

Reports of the carrier’s arrival came as Iran warned Sunday that it will “plant mines like seeds” throughout the gulf unless the United States and other Western powers withdraw their naval forces from the region.

In the Persian Gulf War, Iraq announced that its aircraft have resumed strikes against Iranian oil installations, hitting two oil-pumping stations at Ahvaz in southwestern Iran.

The arrival of the Guadalcanal, ordered to the gulf to make up for a serious weakness in the U.S. Navy’s minesweeping capabilities, is expected to clear the way for the start of the next convoy of Kuwaiti tankers that have been re-registered under the American flag.

Shipping sources said that three re-registered tankers taking part in the convoy are now fully loaded with oil and waiting to set sail from Kuwait, at the northern end of the gulf, along with their U.S. Navy escorts.

A fourth tanker, the Bridgeton, is also anchored off Kuwait, but the sources said it was not clear whether it would make the trip. The Bridgeton was damaged by a mine July 24, during the first U.S.-escorted convoy.

Outside the mouth of the Persian Gulf, coast guard officials abandoned the search for a British sea captain and three others missing in the Gulf of Oman after their supply vessel hit a mine543256164in the United Arab Emirates.

Search Called Off

Shipping officials in Fujaira, on the Emirates’ eastern coast, said the search was called off Sunday after it became clear there were no more survivors from the 156-foot supply boat Anita, which went down about nine miles east of Fujaira in the same area where a U.S.-owned supertanker, the Texaco Caribbean, hit a mine last week.

Seven survivors from the Anita were rescued Saturday, but one of them later died in a hospital.

A shipping alert remained in effect in the waters around Fujaira, where two more mines were discovered and detonated by coast guard patrols Sunday.

Elsewhere in the region, oil industry sources reported that normal exports resumed at a major Saudi Arabian gas liquefying plant that was damaged Saturday by explosions and fire. They said ships have returned to berths at the offshore terminal of the plant operated by the Arabian American Oil Co. at Juaymah on the Saudis’ Persian Gulf coast.

Saudi officials said that fire in an electricity substation near gas lines in an isolated part of the plant caused the explosions and resulted in injuries to four people.

Skeptical of Explanation

Independent shipping sources remained skeptical about the Saudi government’s explanation, saying that a heavier toll was likely and that the possibility of sabotage by pro-Iranian elements could not be ruled out.

In Baghdad, an Iraqi communique said the renewed raids on Iranian oil facilities were mounted in response to Iran’s refusal to accept a resolution adopted last month by the U.N. Security Council, which called upon Iran and Iraq to accept a cease-fire in the war they have been fighting for nearly seven years.

“We will continue our blows and will not lift our hands from them until they officially and clearly respond to the appeals for peace,” the Iraqi communique said.

New Warnings From Iran

Iran, for its part, issued new warnings Sunday that it is prepared to mine more gulf sea lanes and take other actions to disrupt international shipping unless U.S., French and British forces leave the area and Iraq halts its attacks on Iranian tankers and oil installations.

Speaker Hashemi Rafsanjani of the Iranian Parliament said his country now has its own factory to produce mines and warned that “we can produce them and plant them like seeds” throughout the gulf.

Iranian President Ali Khamenei was quoted by Tehran radio as adding that “America and her allies will never be safe from the blows of our people” if they do not withdraw from the gulf.

A sharp increase in the number of mines found in and near the gulf over the last several weeks has prompted the United States, Britain and France to dispatch specialized minesweeping ships and helicopters to the region.

Mine-Snaring Nets

The Guadalcanal, with its complement of minesweeping helicopters, was the first to arrive. The giant choppers, which drag long mine-snaring nets behind them, are expected to fly ahead of the convoy, clearing a path along what, in recent weeks, has become the longest obstacle course in the world.

On the first leg of the 550-mile journey from Kuwait to the Gulf of Oman on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz, the convoy will have to pass Farsi Island, where a fleet of small and fast attack boats manned by Iran’s fanatical Revolutionary Guards is based.

Four of the six vessels struck by mines over the past three months have been hit in this region.

It was the recent appearance of mines in the Gulf of Oman, just outside the entrance to the Persian Gulf, that has caused the most concern in recent days.

Used as Staging Area

It was the first time that mines have appeared outside the gulf, in an area used both as a commercial anchorage for tankers entering and leaving the strait and, now, as the staging area for U.S. warships escorting Kuwaiti tankers on their return trips up the gulf.

The widening of the war zone to this area has come as a shock to the tiny United Arab Emirates, which derives a major portion of its income from the tanker traffic anchoring off Fujaira and the nearby port of Khawr Fakkan.

Although Iran has denied mining the area, it is generally believed that the mines were planted by the Iranians in an attempt to intimidate the small states on the eastern tip of the gulf into pressuring Kuwait to abandon its U.S. Navy escorts.

The tiny Emirates, which until the escorts began lived in a state of peaceful if slightly uneasy coexistence with Iran, now faces a dilemma, analysts said.

Caught in the Middle

To protect their waters, reassure international shipping and preserve their income from anchorage and port traffic, “they desperately need professional minesweeping assistance,” such as only Sea Stallion helicopters from the United States and the minesweepers on their way from Britain and France can provide, a shipping source said.

However, in seeking Western help to protect their waters, they also risk further antagonizing Iran, which laid the mines in the first place.

“People here are not at all happy with Iran right now, but they are only slightly less unhappy with the United States,” one well-placed shipping source said.

“For nearly seven years, they have managed quite well despite the war,” he continued. “But now the confrontation between the United States and Iran is dragging them into the conflict in a way which could spell disaster and with which they feel powerless to cope.”