U.S. Ships and Copters Find 15 Mines in Gulf

U.S. minesweeping ships and helicopters have found 15 mines in the deepwater channel west of Iranian-held Farsi Island over the last two weeks, U.S. officials said Sunday.

The mine situation is now “under control” in the Farsi channel, Lt. Cmdr. Robert McCabe, commanding officer of the minesweeper Esteem, told a media pool.

McCabe said “the parameters of the mine area are pretty well established,” even if U.S. forces have not found all the mines in the northern Persian Gulf.

All the mines found to date have been of the same type--globe-shaped contact mines that float beneath the surface of the water on a tether secured to the sea floor, the officials said.

McCabe said the mines had been sown in a professional manner. “They were specifically trying to counter the movements of the reflagged ships,” he said.

Convoy Completes Trip

The 19th U.S.-escorted convoy of reflagged Kuwaiti tankers, including the Gas Queen, Gas Prince and Townsend, completed its trip out of the gulf late Saturday, slipping through the Strait of Hormuz into the Gulf of Oman, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command said.

Meanwhile, in the gulf war, Iraqi warplanes attacked an oil tanker serving Iran’s vital coastal facilities, Baghdad radio said.

Iraq also reported that its warplanes bombed installations at two electricity-generating dams in southwestern Iran on Sunday.

An Iraqi military communique said waves of Iraqi jets “penetrated enemy air defenses and raided highly important economic targets” linked with Iran’s war effort.

The communique, quoted in an Iraqi News Agency dispatch monitored in Cyprus, said the warplanes inflicted serious damage on the power distribution network at Grand Reza Shah Dam.

Simultaneously, other jets struck at El Diz Dam’s electricity distribution station, leaving it “gutted with explosions,” the agency said.

The attacks on the dams were the first in about 10 days against economic installations on the Iranian mainland. During that period, Iraqi air raids targeted Iranian shipping lanes in the gulf or troop concentrations along the war front.