Iran-Iraq Air War Heats Up as Both Sides Report Raids : Meantime, Convoy of Reflagged Kuwaiti Tankers Sails for Gulf of Oman With U.S. Escort

The air war between Iran and Iraq intensified Saturday, while in the Persian Gulf, another convoy of Kuwaiti tankers, re-registered under the American flag, sailed under the escort of U.S. warships.

Four tankers loaded with oil and gas slipped out of the anchorage at the Kuwaiti oil terminal of Al Ahmadi, at the northern end of the Gulf, before dawn Saturday for what should be, barring any hitches, a two-day run down the waterway, shipping sources said.

The convoy included the supertanker Bridgeton, making its first voyage down the gulf since it struck a mine in waters off Kuwait last month during the first U.S. escort mission, the sources added.

Plagued First Two Convoys

The appearance of mines, widely believed to have been planted by Iran, plagued the first two convoys and proved to be a threat for which the Navy was unprepared until the arrival last week of eight Sea Stallion minesweeping helicopters aboard the assault ship Guadalcanal.

The Guadalcanal accompanied the third convoy, which arrived off Kuwait on Friday evening to take on its cargoes after sailing up the gulf without incident.

The warship escorts, which included the guided-missile destroyer Kidd and two frigates, then turned around to shepherd the Bridgeton and three other tankers, the Sea Isle City, the Ocean City and the Gas King, down the waterway to the Gulf of Oman. There, the tankers will transfer their cargoes to other vessels before making the 550-mile return journey to Kuwait.

Air Strikes Reported

With the convoys finally starting to run smoothly, attention shifted to the war’s principals, with both Iran and Iraq reporting large air strikes against one another.

In Baghdad, a military spokesman announced that 40 Iraqi warplanes bombed a petrochemical complex at the Iranian port of Bandar Khomeini, causing extensive damage and destroying several nearby anti-aircraft missile sites, in the second major air strike into Iran in two days.

More interesting, however, was an announcement by Iran that its jet fighters had attacked targets in northern and southern Iraq in retaliation for the Iraqi raids against several factories the day before.

Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency said that Iranian planes bombed military bases and factories in the towns of Dihok and Darband in the northern Kurdistan region of Iraq, as well as in the southern city of Amarah.

Significant Attack

“Irreparable damage and losses were inflicted,” IRNA asserted, giving no other details except to say that all the Iranian planes returned safely to base.

Experts who follow the gulf war noted that it was the first time in many months that Iran has reported using its air force to strike inside Iraq.

Previously, Iranian strikes were limited to long-range missile attacks on Baghdad or artillery and rocket bombardments of Basra and other population centers in the south.

This, in turn, has been attributed by experts to the difficulties Iran has been having in keeping its U.S.-made planes, purchased before the Iranian revolution, in the air due to a lack of spare parts.

But if the air strikes that were evidently resumed on Saturday are repeated, it could indicate that Iran has been able to put more planes back in the air with the aid of the spare parts the Reagan Administration covertly sold it in an attempt to win the release of American hostages in Lebanon, analysts said.

Air Force ‘More Active’

“The Iranian air force has definitely become more active in recent months,” one Western expert on the war said. However, he cautioned that it was too soon to draw any conclusions, noting that it was not clear from the Iranian announcement how many planes took part in Saturday’s raid.

The tanker convoy now on its way to the Gulf of Oman is the fourth escort mission undertaken by the Navy since President Reagan agreed to re-register 11 Kuwaiti vessels under the American flag to protect them from Iranian attacks.

While it was Iraq that initiated the so-called tanker war and has carried out most of the attacks against international shipping, Kuwaiti tankers have been singled out by Iran because of Kuwait’s support for Iraq in the gulf war.

The Navy has shrouded its escort movements in secrecy, but shipping sources said the latest convoy had already passed safely through the first and most dangerous leg of the journey--the northern waters of the gulf where the Bridgeton was hit by a mine July 24.