Iraqis Attack 2 Oil Tankers, 54 Crewmen Presumed Dead

As many as 54 crewmen are missing and presumed dead after Iraqi jets attacked two Iranian-owned oil tankers, Norwegian government and shipping officials said today.

The Norwegian Foreign Ministry reported the men were presumed to have died in the attack Saturday on Iran’s Kharg Island oil terminal. Most of the crew were Iranians or Asians, although a Swedish officer was among the missing.

It would be the worst death toll from an Iraqi raid on Iranian vessels since the so-called “tanker war” erupted in 1984, an offshoot of the 7 1/2-year-old Iran-Iraq War.

In Oslo, Christen Puntervold of the Norwegian Shipping Assn. said four of the 29-man crew of the 253,837-ton tanker Sanandaj had been found alive after the attack Saturday.

“The others are missing. About the other ship, we don’t know for sure, but we are afraid it could be the same for them,” he said, referring to the 316,379-ton Avaj which also carried a crew of 29.

Both ships were owned by the National Iranian Tanker Co., but the Sanandaj’s crew was enlisted by Viking Engineering, which is Norwegian-owned.

Persian Gulf-based shipping sources said Iranian gunboats today attacked a Liberian tanker near the Strait of Hormuz, setting it ablaze. The Iranian attack was in apparent retaliation for Iraq’s raid on Kharg.

Iraq, meanwhile, said it fired a long-range missile into Tehran today, the 105th in three weeks, and that Iranian gunners pounded its southern port city of Basra in an 18-hour artillery and rocket barrage.