Iraqi Oil Centers Under Air Attack; Iranian City Struck by Missile

Iran hit Iraqi oil centers with a missile and aircraft raids Monday in response to attacks on its major refineries, and Iraq fired a rocket into the Iranian city of Esfahan.

Iran said its artillerymen shelled Iraqi defensive positions in the Kurdistan mountains of northeast Iraq, where Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guards have captured a large area around strategic Lake Darbandikhan in a 3-week-old offensive.

An Iranian government statement said Revolutionary Guards and Kurdish guerrillas repulsed counterattacks by two Iraqi brigades in the battle zone, killing or wounding 150 men.

Javier Perez de Cuellar, secretary general of the United Nations, is to meet Iranian and Iraqi envoys in New York this week in search of a cease-fire in the 7 1/2-year-old war. The Security Council passed a resolution July 20 demanding a truce.

The Iraqis threatened Monday to level Iran’s cities in revenge for the northern offensive. Iranian invaders are 75 miles from the Kirkuk oil fields, which account for more than half the crude oil production with which President Saddam Hussein’s government finances the war.

A dispatch from Tehran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency said Revolutionary Guards fired a long-range missile at Kirkuk’s oil refinery Monday in retaliation for Iraqi air raids the previous day on oil refineries in Tabriz and Esfahan.

Baghdad’s official Iraqi News Agency said the missile fired Monday exploded in a residential neighborhood of Kirkuk, killing or wounding “many civilians.”

Other reports from the agency said Iraq’s air force flew 206 sorties against Iranian troop concentrations and bombed oil installations in Mahshar on the Persian Gulf coast.

The Iranians reported casualties in Mahshar but gave no figures. They said Iraqi jets bombed Dezful in western Iran and Abadan, a southwestern oil center.

Esfahan has been the target of 12 missiles, including the one fired Monday, since Iran and Iraq began firing long-range missiles into each other’s cities Feb. 29. Iraq had suspended attacks on Iranian cities for 3 days during a visit to Baghdad by Prime Minister Turgut Ozal of Turkey that ended Sunday.