Tanker Attacked in Gulf; U.S. Ship Fires a Warning

A U.S. warship fired a warning shot near one of three Iranian gunboats that attacked a Danish-flag supertanker in the southern Persian Gulf on Saturday, a Pentagon spokesman said.

It was the first time a U.S. warship has come to the aid of a non-U.S.-flag tanker since Secretary of Defense Frank C. Carlucci announced in April that such assistance would be provided when requested, Lt. Col. Arnold Williams said.

The challenge came hours after Iraqi warplanes attacked two Iranian tankers, shattering a nearly three-week lull in the gulf’s so-called tanker war.

Other war developments Saturday:

-- The official Iraqi news agency said the Baghdad regime’s forces had recaptured seven mountain heights along the northern border.

-- Iraq apologized to South Korea for killing at least 13 Korean workers in an attack on a nearly completed gas-refining plant in southern Iran on Thursday.

Col. Williams said the frigate Elmer Montgomery, patrolling the area, responded to an emergency assistance call from the tanker, identified by gulf shipping sources as the 337,733-ton Karama Maersk, which they said was carrying Saudi Arabian crude oil.

“The tanker reported being under attack from three small Iranian gunboats,” Williams said. “By the time the Montgomery got into range, two of the gunboats had left. One was still in the vicinity. The Montgomery fired a warning shot, and the boat departed.”

Williams said there were no injuries, damage or casualties to the tanker or the Montgomery. He said the incident occurred about 13 miles south of Abu Musa Island.

The shipping sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the island, 30 miles north of the coast of the United Arab Emirates in the southwestern gulf, is a launching point for attacks by Iranian gunboats.

The tanker continued on its course south toward the Strait of Hormuz, and the Montgomery resumed its normal patrol, Williams said.

U.S. military sources in the gulf who spoke on condition of anonymity said that in following the Navy’s rules of engagement, the Montgomery confirmed with the captain of the Karama Maersk that his ship was not carrying war-related materials.

In July last year, U.S. warships began escorting 11 Kuwaiti oil tankers that were re-registered to fly the American flag in order to protect them from possible attack by Iran.

In the northern gulf Saturday, salvage tugboats battled flames on the two Iranian tankers attacked by Iraqi warplanes. They were hit as they sailed south from Iran’s Kharg Island loading terminal, according to shipping executives. No casualties were reported.

The tankers were still burning 12 hours after the attacks late Friday and early Saturday, the shipping sources said. The two ships had been attacked a combined total of at least seven times in the last 18 months.

The gulf had been quiet since early this month, with action in the nearly 8-year-old war concentrated on battlefields along the 730-mile frontier, where Iraq’s forces have scored a series of major victories in the last three months.

Baghdad had not claimed responsibility for a tanker raid since June 10, and Iran’s last known gunboat sortie was an attack on the Singapore-flag Neptune Subaru in the northern gulf on June 14.

An Iraqi communique monitored in Nicosia, Cyprus, on Saturday said warplanes scored “direct and effective hits” on two “large maritime targets” shortly before and just after midnight.

The Iraqis have been attacking tankers carrying Iranian oil since 1984.

The gulf-based executives identified the ships as the 268,081-ton Greek-owned Fortuneship L, under charter to Iran, and the 284,299-ton Khark 4, one of the Tehran government’s fleet.

Records show the Khark 4 was the victim of Iraqi raids on Feb. 17, Sept. 29, Oct. 21 and Nov. 29 of last year, and the Fortuneship L was hit Aug. 30, Nov. 11 and Nov. 12, 1987.

With Iraq’s ports closed since the early days of the war, the Iranians attack neutral merchant ships, mainly those serving Kuwait or Saudi Arabia. Tehran accuses the two countries, which profess neutrality, of aiding Baghdad’s war effort.

More than 500 ships have been attacked by both sides in the tanker war, with more than 300 sailors killed.

Iran’s armed craft have carried out three attacks since May 27 and apparently have made a special effort to avoid U.S. warships now permitted to intervene in attacks on commercial ships, regardless of what flag they fly.

Iran’s reverses in the land war began in April, when Iraq recaptured its southern Faw Peninsula, occupied by Iran for more than two years.

In May, Baghdad’s forces fought a nine-hour battle in the Shalamcheh area, east of Basra, driving Iranian troops back across the Shatt al Arab waterway and out of Iraq.

Two weeks ago, anti-Iranian Moujahedeen guerrillas of the National Liberation Army--possibly with Iraqi help--occupied the border town of Mehran in southwestern Iran, then later withdrew.

Last week, Iraq recaptured the oil-rich Majnoon Islands straddling its southern border with Iran.

On June 2, Iran’s supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, put Speaker of Parliament Hashemi Rafsanjani in command of all military forces.

Rafsanjani said he planned to streamline and improve the command and control of Iranian military forces, which Western defense sources have described as suffering from poor logistics and a shortage of good staff officers.

On Friday, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Corps, the all-volunteer arm of Khomeini’s brand of Islamic fundamentalism, made a dramatic appeal for volunteers, saying major setbacks in the war have pushed Iran’s Islamic revolution to its most sensitive point.

Iranian President Ali Khamenei joined in the appeal, telling worshipers at Friday prayers in Tehran that the elite Revolutionary Guards, blamed for Iraq’s recapture of territory on the southern front, must “improve” their “fighting ability in order to bring the enemy to his knees.”