U.S. Copters Fire on Iranian Ship : Set Vessel Ablaze After Finding It Laying Mines in Gulf, Officials Say

American military helicopters opened fire with machine guns and rockets on an Iranian ship that was laying mines in the Persian Gulf, setting it ablaze and leaving it “dead in the water,” Pentagon and White House officials said Monday night.

The attack was the first by U.S. forces to damage an Iranian target since the U.S. naval buildup in the region began in July. There were no American casualties, officials said. There was no information Monday night about injured Iranians aboard the stricken ship, the Iran Ajr.

The helicopter attack occurred about three hours after Iranian gunboats set fire to a British tanker, the 57,500-ton Gentle Breeze, in the northern gulf. Earlier in the day, Iraqi warplanes flew deep into Iran to bomb an oil facility near Tehran and other industrial targets.

The White House described the U.S. attack as “a defensive action” in response to clear evidence that the Iranians were sowing mines in a heavily traveled commercial shipping channel about 50 miles northeast of Bahrain.

‘An Immediate Risk’

“We have previously communicated with the Iranian government the way in which we would respond to such provocative acts, which present an immediate risk to United States ships and to all ships,” said White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater. “United States forces acted in a defensive manner and in accordance with existing rules of engagement.”

The Iranian ship, thought to be a 212-foot, Dutch-made landing craft, was spotted about midnight Monday local time by at least two helicopters from the Jarrett, a U.S. guided-missile frigate whose home port is Long Beach, that was patrolling about 15 miles away.

Using night scopes and other unspecified equipment, U.S. forces determined that the Iranians were dropping mines over the side of the ship, Pentagon spokesman Fred S. Hoffman said.

“The location is in international waters at a spot frequently used by commercial vessels, both those of the United States and of other neutral nations,” Hoffman said.

There was no radio communication between the U.S. helicopters and the Iranian ship, officials said. The helicopter pilots sought and received permission to fire on the ship from Rear Adm. Harold Bernsen, commander of the Navy’s Middle East Force, the Navy battle group that operates inside the Persian Gulf.

“It wasn’t a snap judgment,” Hoffman said.

The choppers attacked with 7.62-millimeter machine guns and 2.75-inch rockets, setting the stern of the Iran Ajr on fire.

“The fire appears to be out, and the ship is dead in the water,” Hoffman said. “Our ships and aircraft are standing by to render such help as may be needed.”

Hoffman said that the incident occurred “very near an anchorage that our ships use off Bahrain.” He said the helicopter acted after “careful observation” and after officials were satisfied the ship was laying mines.

“And it was clearly hostile intent,” he said.

The Pentagon refused to say what type of helicopters was involved in the attack, although the copters appeared to have weaponry similar to that carried by Army MH-6 helicopters used by Special Operations Forces.

U.S. warships reportedly were encircling the Iranian ship early this morning, but it was not clear what further action they might take.

President Is Notified

President Reagan was informed about the incident by National Security Adviser Frank C. Carlucci aboard Air Force One as he was returning to Washington after addressing the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

The incident was the first American military action against Iran since Aug. 8, when a Navy F-14 Tomcat fighter fired two missiles at an Iranian jet that was judged to be threatening a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft. Both missiles missed.

At the United Nations, Secretary of State George P. Shultz said: “Obviously, just from today’s events you see how important it is to have a cease-fire” in the seven-year Iran-Iraq War.

A Shultz aide stressed that the U.S. attack was legal under international law.

“This is one of those cases where international law is clearly on our side,” the official said. “Laying mines in international waters is not legal.”

U.S. ‘Had Every Right’

Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a radio interview that the United States “had every right to take the action that apparently we did, which is to stop the mine-laying by stopping the ship.”

United Press International quoted U.S. Navy sources as reporting that scores of mines apparently sown by Iranian vessels were recently discovered in the central gulf off Bahrain.

The mines apparently were planted to hit U.S. warships on their way to a small refueling facility in the area that is operated by the Navy, the sources said.

The United States has been steadily building its naval armada in the region since last spring to support its escorts of reflagged Kuwaiti tankers.

There currently are 11 Navy warships guarding convoys inside the gulf. Another 23 U.S. ships are sailing in the Gulf of Oman and the north Arabian Sea, including the aircraft carrier Ranger and the battleship Missouri. Additional minesweepers, support ships and replacement warships are en route from ports in the United States.

The Soviets, British, Dutch, French, Italians and Belgians also have warships stationed in the gulf to protect merchant ships and to try to deter Iranian and Iraqi attacks.

Asked about the helicopter attack outside the Soviet mission to the United Nations in New York, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze told reporters through an interpreter: “I’ve not had this information yet, but that is why we are against any military presence in the gulf. The concentration of naval ships cannot lead to anything good. We know that this will lead to complications.”

In the attack on the British tanker earlier Monday, two crewmen were reported missing. The tanker radioed that it had been attacked by an “Iranian missile boat” and that its crew quarters were on fire. A salvage tug was sent to assist it, according to Lloyd’s Shipping Intelligence Unit in London.

The vessel, sailing empty from the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam on Africa’s east coast to Kuwait, was about 20 miles west of Farsi Island when the attack occurred at about 9 p.m. Iran has used Farsi as a base for gunboats to strike at shipping on the western side of the gulf in retaliation for Iraqi attacks on Iran’s oil exporting facilities.

North of Bahrain

Shipping sources said that Monday’s attack on the Gentle Breeze, operated by Wallam Ship Management Ltd. of Hong Kong, occurred about 100 miles north of Bahrain, about halfway between that island emirate near the gulf’s west coast and Kuwait at the northern tip of the waterway.

British warships in the gulf escort British-flag tankers in the southern half of the gulf but do not normally accompany them northward past Bahrain.

In other action Monday, Iraqi planes flew 300 miles across Iran to bomb several factories and oil facilities in the sixth consecutive day of air strikes against Iranian industrial targets, Iraqi military communiques said.

A military spokesman said the targets included a factory and a power plant near Kermanshah in western Iran and a pumping station near Tehran that supplies oil for the capital.

The jets “scored accurate and effective hits and . . . returned safely to base, leaving their targets burning,” the spokesman added.

Rejection of Truce Call

As Iraqi officials have done for the past several days, the spokesman characterized the raids as part of the Iraqi retaliation against Iran for rejecting a U.N. cease-fire resolution, which Iraq has accepted in principle.

Against this background of rising conflict, Iranian President Ali Khamenei left Tehran for New York, where he is scheduled to address the U.N. General Assembly today.

Khamenei, the highest-ranking Iranian official to visit the United States since the Iranian revolution brought the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power in 1979, is expected to outline Iran’s conditions for ending the conflict, which began seven years ago today. But the latest incident could result in an anti-American tirade instead.

The Reagan Administration has called upon Khamenei to accept the Security Council’s demand for a cease-fire, warning that otherwise it will press for an arms embargo against Iran, in line with the council’s threat to impose sanctions on whichever side refuses to end the conflict.

Iran’s Same Demands

However, as Khamenei departed, a senior Iranian official reiterated Tehran’s rejection of the terms of the U.N. peace plan, saying that the world must agree to identify and punish Iraq as “the aggressor” in the conflict before Iran can accept a cease-fire.

Peace is a “distant dream unless the aggressor is identified and punished,” Prime Minister Hussein Moussavi told a meeting of the Iranian Cabinet in Tehran.

The Security Council’s cease-fire resolution, passed unanimously on July 20, envisions a U.N.-supervised cease-fire, an exchange of prisoners and a return to international borders. Since Iraq occupies no Iranian territory, this latter provision is tantamount to an Iranian withdrawal. In return for Iran agreeing to this, an international commission would be established to determine who bears real responsibility for starting the war.

International condemnation of Iraq for starting the war has been one of three longstanding Iranian demands for ending it. The other two are the removal of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the payment of billions of dollars in war reparations.

Times staff writer Michael Ross, in the United Arab Emirates, also contributed to this article.