Marines Pound Iraqi Bunkers, Lookout Posts

Ground action in the war intensified Tuesday as elements of the 1st Marine Division pounded Iraqi targets in Kuwait with artillery, mortars, anti-tank missiles and automatic cannon fire.

Firing from as close as 1,100 yards from the border, a task force of Marine light armored vehicles, artillery and other equipment hit Iraqi bunkers and observation posts with a 300-round barrage, according to military sources here.

Officers said at least one complex of Iraqi bunkers and outposts was destroyed during the 15-minute bombardment. Iraqi units did not return the fire, and there were no reports of Marine casualties. Despite the action, there was no indication that a full-scale ground offensive was under way.

In the air war, U.S. forces hammered targets in round-the-clock bombing they said is gradually destroying President Saddam Hussein’s elite Republican Guard.

Allied planes flew more than 2,600 combat sorties against Iraqi targets Tuesday. The American command said attacks on roads, fuel depots, command posts and a wide range of other targets close to the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border are making it increasingly difficult for Iraq to supply its army in occupied Kuwait.

In other developments:

* Iraq said that a downed allied pilot being used as a human shield was killed during a bomb attack on the Ministry of Industry building in Baghdad.

* Allied warplanes caught an Iraqi military convoy moving across the open desert and, in the largest “confirmed” destruction of enemy armored vehicles, knocked out 24 tanks, armored personnel carriers and supply vehicles. “They were sloppy and they were caught,” said Col. Ron Richard, a spokesman for the 2nd Marine Division.

* American military officials said that by now, at least 90 Iraqi aircraft, including a sophisticated radar surveillance plane, have taken refuge in Iran. They said a number of Iraqi maintenance personnel have accompanied the planes to Iran, but the aircraft have relatively little ammunition. Iran has promised to impound the aircraft, and the allies say they will shoot down any that attempt to rejoin the war.

* The commander of British forces in the Middle East said allied forces have destroyed 75% to 80% of Iraq’s oil-refining capacity. Sources in Iran said immense clouds of smoke could be seen rising from large Iraqi petrochemical facilities in Basra, near the Iranian border. Allied military spokesmen said the aim is to weaken Iraq’s war machine by depriving it of fuel for planes and vehicles.

* Scientists predicted that the huge oil slick in the Persian Gulf will double in size and threaten both the Saudi and Iranian coasts despite efforts to push it offshore with giant seawater pumps. An international coalition of experts is scheduled to meet in Saudi Arabia today to discuss other measures to contain the spill, which the allies have blamed on Iraq.

Report of POW Death

In announcing the death of the allied pilot over Baghdad’s state radio network, the Iraqis did not give either his name or nationality and repeated their earlier report that an unspecified number of prisoners of war, held as human shields at potential bombing targets, have been wounded in allied raids.

“The enemy fired three missiles simultaneously with a number of air raids against Baghdad last night,” the radio said. “One of the raids hit one of the departments of the Ministry of Industry, killing one of the captured foreign pilots, who had been evacuated to that department. . . .

“We hold the United States responsible for the crime of killing this captured pilot and injuring others,” the broadcast said.

The Iraqis were the target of international criticism when they announced that captured pilots would be held at strategic targets around the country, just as foreign hostages were held throughout Iraq and Kuwait before the outbreak of fighting.

Flights to Iran

The Pentagon said Tuesday that about 10 more Iraqi planes had flown into Iran, bringing the total to about 90.

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens said Tuesday in Jerusalem that the exodus has reduced the threat of chemical attack on his nation because the planes flown to Iran include all of Iraq’s Soviet-supplied Sukhoi 24 bombers, the only Iraqi aircraft with the range to fly round-trip missions over Israel carrying bombs containing poison gas.

Among the other Iraqi aircraft flown to Iran was an airborne radar surveillance plane, similar to the American AWACS--airborne warning and control system--that would have been used to direct raids by Iraqi warplanes, according to a senior Pentagon official.

The airborne control plane was flown out of Iraq before the most recent spate of flights to Iran. Some officers interpreted the move as a sign that the Iraqi air force, which is highly dependent on direction by air commanders, had decided early that it would not put up a fight.

A second Iraqi AWACS plane--actually a Soviet-made transport aircraft fitted with a rotating radar dish--was destroyed earlier on the ground in an allied bombing strike.

Left in Iraq, however, are “close air support” planes that would attempt to protect Iraqi troops in combat with U.S.-led ground troops.

In Washington, congressional sources said one Iraqi transport plane has returned to Iraq from Iran. The sources, who spoke anonymously after receiving a military briefing, said the return has persuaded some analysts that the planes flown to Iran are not being piloted by defectors.

Lt. Gen. Thomas W. Kelly, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday that the exodus of Iraqi planes was an act of desperation caused by the allied air campaign, rather than a prearranged deal with Iran.

“It’s my belief that originally the Iraqis may have believed that the aircraft shelters would protect their first-line aircraft in Iraq and they found out that that was not the case,” Kelly said.

Kelly and other senior Pentagon officials have expressed surprise and relief at the mystifying flights to Iran.

“These aircraft have elected not to fight,” said Kelly, who added that the planes in Iran are now farther from potential allied targets and thus easier to spot if they do try to leave Iran. Kelly said, however, that if departing Iraqi warplanes are detected within range of allied fighters, they would be engaged and shot down. Civil airliners would be exempt from that policy, he added.

Pentagon spokesman Pete Williams said that many of the planes still in Iraq are scrambling into the air from roads and highways.

One theory circulating widely among senior Pentagon officials is that successful U.S. strikes on Iraq’s hardened aircraft shelters caused Iraqi air force officers to rethink a strategy of hunkering down and waiting out the attack.

“They thought we couldn’t do anything. And then the F-117s started drilling holes in them, and they decided to get up and go,” said one senior official. “When we started firing on their hardened bunkers, which they thought would survive direct hits, and started popping them, they changed their minds about staying down there.”

One Pentagon specialist confirmed that some Iraqi maintenance men accompanied the planes that flew to Iran. The specialist, who declined to be named, said the allies will be watching closely for the arrival of more technicians and for signs of aircraft maintenance that could be clues to Iran’s or Iraq’s intentions.

“It’s hard to know whether they can last four months without maintenance and then fly,” the official said. “I don’t think so. But can they sit with a minimal amount--what they call preventive maintenance--and fly? Probably.”

The maintenance technicians, who number “more than a handful,” probably came in transport planes that crossed the border with the warplanes, the official said. Iran has different aircraft systems and probably could not maintain the planes by itself.

The planes brought minimal ammunition, the official said--”Some came with one round.” He said that if the planes attempt to launch attacks from Iran, “the most they could do is one run.”

Iran has declared itself neutral in the war, and under the rules of neutrality, it must impound the aircraft and refrain from keeping them combat-ready.

Ground Attacks

In an Iraqi ambush, three Saudi border guards were wounded in an exchange of gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades, and one Iraqi officer was killed, according to allied military sources who described the Sunday attack.

“They’re coming across the border, which means patrolling is a lot more dangerous,” said a senior U.S. official who asked not to be identified. “The ante is upped.”

In communiques giving their version of the ambush, the Iraqis said that one of their border patrols from Kuwait stormed one of the allies’ forward observation posts and killed all those manning it.

Another communique from Baghdad said that two columns of Iraqi troops crossed the Saudi border 300 miles northwest of Kuwait and killed “large numbers” of allied troops--nationality unspecified. Allied forces gave no account of any such engagement.

The Air War

An Air Force F-15 fighter shot down an Iraqi MIG-23 Tuesday, bringing confirmed Iraqi losses in the air to 27 aircraft, the allied command said. At least another 23 Iraqi planes have been destroyed on the ground, the officials said.

Army Brig. Gen. Pat Stevens told reporters in Riyadh that Navy A-6 attack planes hit and probably destroyed two Silkworm missile sites on Iraq’s Faw Peninsula, just north of Kuwait, that could have threatened allied shipping in the northern Persian Gulf. He said the same planes also knocked out an oil storage facility near the Kuwait International Airport.

Hitting the Convoy

Flames from the attack on the Iraqi convoy were clearly visible to U.S. Marines across the border in Saudi Arabia.

“It was the first hard kill we’ve gotten on a big target,” said Col. Richard, the Marine spokesman.

Richard said the convoy apparently was on routine patrol, and not headed for attack, when it was spotted by a Marine reconnaissance unit and hit by Marine AV-8B Harrier jets.

Kennedy reported from Riyadh and Wright and Melissa Healy from Washington.