Gulf Tanker War Truce Shattered by Iraq Raids : Aircraft Hit Iranian Offshore Installations; Vessel Docked at Island Terminal Set Ablaze

A six-week truce in the Persian Gulf tanker war was shattered Saturday when Iraqi warplanes attacked Iranian offshore oil installations, setting an Iranian ship ablaze.

The Iraqi raids, carried out by “tens of aircraft,” were the first against Iranian shipping since the U.S. Navy began escorting Kuwaiti tankers through gulf waters last month. Iran has threatened to retaliate against Kuwaiti ships for Iraqi attacks, placing American warships in jeopardy of being attacked by Iranian forces.

In Tehran, a military spokesman said that the Iraqi attacks would be met with a “crushing response.” He said the presence of U.S. ships in the gulf was supporting “the creation of crisis in the gulf.” The spokesman did not specify how Iran would respond to the Iraqi attacks.

Angry Iraqi Responses

The Iraqi raids effectively emasculated a cease-fire ordered by the U.N. Security Council on July 20. Iraq had previously accepted the cease-fire, but Iran has indicated that it accepted only parts of the truce resolution, provoking angry responses from Baghdad.

Speaking on Baghdad radio after Saturday’s raids, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein declared, “From now on, we will strike them (Iran) in the sea and destroy all the economic arteries which finance their military aggression.”

A communique from Iraq’s high command said that Iraqi warplanes attacked Iran’s Rakhsh oil field in the southern Persian Gulf, Lavan Island oil terminal and installations at Farsi Island, 120 miles southeast of Kuwait.

The communique, carried by the Iraqi news agency, said that the warplanes set the oil field on fire and that explosions rocked the jetties at Lavan Island.

The Iraqi communique made no mention of an attack on Sirri Island, an Iranian oil terminal north of Abu Dhabi, which gulf-based shipping sources said was also included in Saturday’s Iraqi raids.

The sources said that two Iraqi warplanes attacked Sirri, setting ablaze an Iranian-owned tanker, the Alvand.

Tanker Unloading Oil

The 236,807-ton ship was apparently tied up at Sirri Island unloading oil it had picked up earlier from Iran’s main export terminal at Kharg Island farther to the north in the gulf. There were no reports of casualties aboard the Alvand.

The Iranians have been using Sirri Island as a transfer terminal to protect foreign shipping from Iraqi attack. Foreign tankers load petroleum at Sirri and Larak islands, which are harder for Iraqi planes to hit than Kharg Island.

“Today’s raid was a very bad thing, especially with all those Americans in the gulf,” said one shipping official. “There is so much naval activity in the gulf, you can’t predict how things will escalate. Now we’re just waiting for an Iranian counterattack.”

The United States currently has 10 warships in the Persian Gulf assigned to its Mideast Force, as well as an aircraft carrier and support ships just outside in the Gulf of Oman.

U.S. Force Growing

The U.S. force has been steadily increased since the end of July, when the United States began escorting Kuwaiti oil tankers through gulf waters. One ship, the supertanker Bridgeton, hit a mine during the first convoy operation. Iran was suspected of having placed the mine, but it was never proved conclusively that it did so.

In Washington on Saturday, the State Department responded to the Iraqi raids with a statement pointing out that Iraq’s ambassador to the United States, Nizar Hamdoon, had warned earlier in the week that Baghdad would renew attacks on Iranian shipping if Iran continued to ignore the Security Council’s cease-fire resolution by pressing the land war against Iraq.

“We have seen press reports that Iraqi jets attacked several targets in the Persian Gulf, including ones on or near Sirri Island,” the department said. “We are aware that the Iraqi ambassador had said Iraq could not wait long before renewing attacks on ships serving Iranian ports. Before and after the adoption of Security Council Resolution 598, Iran has continued to push the land war; Iraq has slowly resumed the air war against economic and military targets, including those hit Saturday.

‘Counseled Restraint’

“Recognizing the volatile situation in the gulf, we have counseled restraint on all sides while seeking an end to the war, not just (to) tension in the gulf.”

Western officials believe that Farsi Island, one of Iraq’s targets Saturday, was used as a base by Iran to carry out attacks on gulf shipping and to lay mines in the area. The Bridgeton was only 18 miles from Farsi Island when it hit a mine.

Apart from the Bridgeton incident, the Navy has successfully escorted two other convoys of ships through the gulf to Kuwait. A fourth convoy is waiting in the Gulf of Oman, apparently delayed by high winds and choppy seas.

Sea Stallion helicopters based on the helicopter carrier Guadalcanal are now being used to clear mines from the sea lanes in front of the escorted ships. The helicopters tow underwater sonar sleds that can detect mines and detonate them with explosive charges.

Pressure Put on Iraq

The United States and Britain had placed enormous political pressure on the Iraqi regime in an effort to prevent a resumption of the tanker war.

The Iraqis last attacked Iranian offshore oil installations on July 15 near the Rakhsh field. The last confirmed ship hit in the fighting was the Greek-owned Nikos Kazantzakis, which was at Kharg Island at the time.

Since the so-called tanker war began in 1984, the Iranians have made it a point of retaliating for Iraqi raids against their shipping.

Since Iraq has no access to the gulf, Iran has been attacking third-country ships carrying oil from Iraq’s allies, particularly Kuwait.

Iranian statements in recent weeks have threatened to retaliate for any new Iraqi attacks with strikes against economic targets such as oil fields inside Kuwait. They have singled out the United States as bearing the responsibility for any new raids.

Iranian leaders such as Hashemi Rafsanjani, the powerful Speaker of Parliament, had made clear that American shipping would not be attacked as long as Iraq refrained from attacking Iran.

Iran’s exports are believed to have topped more than 2 million barrels of oil per day, and it depends on gulf shipping entirely to get its products to market. Exports were earning Iran $1 billion a month to help replenish the country’s war chest.

Some diplomats believe that despite its propaganda, Iran will steer clear of the United States in choosing a target for retaliation. In part, Iran lacks the hardware to take on the United States and Iraq in the war as well as not wanting to risk an all-out American retaliatory strike that shipping sources believe would almost certainly follow a clear Iranian provocation.

Iran has two main threats deployed near the gulf: a system of anti-ship Silkworm missiles that it obtained from China, and dozens of extremely fast speedboats that could be used for suicide raids against naval vessels.

The missiles are reportedly deployed near the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway leading into the gulf. The speedboats operate out of Iranian islands sprinkled throughout the gulf.

Can’t Take Half the Package

Iraqi Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz was quoted in Baghdad on Saturday as saying that Iran’s acceptance of a truce in the gulf without also agreeing to the entire cease-fire package demanded by the Security Council “is not considered an acceptance . . . and thus does not force any commitment on Iraq.”

The cease-fire resolution called for withdrawal from occupied territory--Iran holds a slim salient of Iraqi land near the port of Faw--and exchange of prisoners.