Iraqi Jet Attacks Australian Fishing Vessel, Killing Captain

A missile fired by an Iraqi warplane slammed into an Australian-flagged fishing vessel off the Iranian coast Thursday morning, killing the captain, shipping officials said.

The attack roughly coincided with daylight raids launched by suspected Iranian Revolutionary Guards on a Pakistani tanker.

Alan Brown, Australia’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said in a telephone interview that Capt. Robert Wilcox of the Australian-flagged ship Shenton Bluff was killed when the missile slammed into the wheelhouse.

Six other crewmen, including two Australians, abandoned the vessel and were rescued unharmed, Brown said. Shipping officials said the Shenton Bluff’s crew was shrimping in southern Persian Gulf waters off the Iranian coast under a contract with Iran when it was hit by a missile from an Iraqi warplane.

The ship is owned by Northern Bluff Fisheries Properties Ltd. of Freemantle, Australia, maritime officials said. By late Thursday, the crippled vessel was under tow by a sister ship en route to the port of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

In the southern Persian Gulf, the Pakistani-flagged 49,635-ton oil tanker Johar, carrying a 36-man crew, came under machine-gun and rocket-propelled grenade fire Thursday morning from suspected Iranian Revolutionary Guards as it sailed north out of the narrow Strait of Hormuz to the main Saudi Arabian oil terminal at Ras Tannurah, officials said.

Two speedboats, carrying four or five men each, “came within about 500 feet and opened fire,” the captain said by radio after anchoring off the port at Dubai. “We hardly had any warning.”

Meanwhile, in Tokyo the Ministry of Transport announced today that Japanese ships will cease sailing into the Persian Gulf until their safety can be guaranteed.