Tanker War Reheats as ‘War of Cities’ Cools Off

Action in the war between Iran and Iraq shifted back to the Persian Gulf region Saturday as a truce protecting civilian centers continued to be honored by both sides.

Neither Iran nor Iraq reported attacks by missiles or bombers on each other’s cities for the first time since Feb. 27, when a “war of the cities” was touched off by an Iraqi air raid on an oil refinery near Tehran.

An Iraqi war communique said that this country’s warplanes attacked a “large naval target” in the Persian Gulf, which usually means an attack on a supertanker carrying Iranian oil. It was the third Iraqi attack on gulf shipping claimed this week--only one of which has been independently verified--but it followed nearly two months of calm in the so-called tanker war.

Oil Platform Attacked

For its part, Iran said that Revolutionary Guards in gunboats attacked a disused Iraqi oil platform in the northern Persian Gulf at Khor al Amaya, about 20 miles south of Al Faw. The platform became unusable for its primary purpose at the beginning of the war when Iran severed Iraq’s oil export links through the gulf. It then became the site of a radar station used to protect the Iraqi coast.

A communique distributed by the Iranian news agency said the Revolutionary Guards destroyed radar equipment, rockets and troop quarters during the raid. Ali Ahani, an official of Iran’s Foreign Ministry, told reporters in The Hague that Iran plans to retaliate for losses it suffered during the war of the cities, but he emphasized that “the war should be limited to the war fronts.”

The apparent end to the exchange of attacks on cities was the result of an informal truce declared by Iraq on Thursday and accepted Friday afternoon by Iran. Iraq attacked Tehran and the Iranian holy city of Qom minutes before the cease-fire took effect.

Since Feb. 27, Iraq said it fired 68 ground-to-ground missiles at Tehran and other major Iranian cities, and carried out bomber strikes against 37 other towns. Iran said it fired 31 missiles at Baghdad and other Iraqi cities.

The exchange was the heaviest use of missiles since the Iran-Iraq War began in September, 1980. Reports from Tehran said that residents began streaming back to their homes in the Iranian capital Saturday for the first time in nearly two weeks. Shops that had been closed as a result of the exodus from the city also reopened.

Baghdad was apparently less drastically affected, since none of the Iranian missiles struck in the densely populated city center. But an air of relief was nevertheless evident in the Iraqi capital.

Despite the cease-fire in the war of the cities, Iraq has made clear that it plans to keep pressing Iran economically until the Tehran regime expresses a willingness to negotiate an end to the war.

Most diplomats believe Iran was taken by surprise by Iraq’s massive use of missiles, which were believed to be Soviet-supplied Scud-Bs that were modified here to give them a range beyond what they were designed for.

Iran suffered a psychological defeat in accepting the Iraqi terms for the truce, the diplomats said, and would not have done so unless it was really necessary to support sagging morale at home.

Iraq feels it has scored a major victory over Iran, convincing Tehran that further attacks by Iran on Iraqi civilian centers will result in massive retaliation by Iraq. But Iraq is also trying to avoid creating obstacles for a resolution now pending in the U.N. Security Council that would impose an arms embargo on Iran.

The embargo is being pressed by the United States, Britain and France as a means of bringing pressure to bear on Iran to accept a U.N. cease-fire resolution adopted last July. Iraq accepted the resolution, but Iran so far has not clearly said it would do so.