Iran Speedboat Attacks Saudi Tanker in Gulf

An Iranian speedboat shot up a Saudi Arabian-owned tanker in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, a day after President Reagan warned Iran to halt its attacks on shipping in the Persian Gulf.

Shipping sources said one of six marauding Iranian speedboats fired rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns at the Liberian-registered, 37,011-ton Sea Trader, owned by Bakri Navigation Co. of Jidda, Saudi Arabia, as the five other speedboats stood aside. It was the first Iranian attack on a vessel in the gulf since last Monday’s engagement with U.S. warships in which six Iranian ships were sunk or damaged.

“Under Iranian attack!” radioed the Sea Trader’s captain as the vessel came under fire while it steamed through the strategic strait toward the Saudi port of Ras Tannurah, the sources said.

No Casualties

The Indian skipper, Capt. B. R. Pagarkar, reported that his vessel sustained slight damage but said there were no casualties among the Indian crew.

Pagarkar said five of the speedboats “went in one direction while one appeared to be heading for another tanker, and I thought we’d escaped an attack. But suddenly it veered toward my ship, asking for the master.”

An unexploded rocket dangled from the Sea Trader’s hull after the attack but fell into the sea before the tanker reached the port of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

It was not known whether any U.S. warships were near the Sea Trader during the attack.

There was no indication of any immediate U.S. retaliation.

Reagan warned Iran in his weekly radio broadcast Saturday that continued attacks on neutral shipping and a refusal to end the Iran-Iraq War “will be very costly to Iran and its people.”

Iran, in turn, warned Sunday in a commentary on Tehran radio that it would turn the gulf into “fire and blood” if its interests were overlooked, and diplomatic sources in Afghanistan said the U.S. Embassy in Kabul is gearing for a possible threat from Tehran.