Gulf tanker war cripples vessel

Press, 29 August 1984, Page 10

Gulf tanker war cripples vessel

NZPA-AP Manama, Bahrain A warplane rocketed a Panamanian vessel yesterday as it sailed to a Saudi Arabian port, adding a forty-first victim to the list of tankers attacked in the Gulf war since February. Gulf shipping sources said they believed that the plane was Iranian. The captain of the Cleo I radioed no distress signals, but reported his vessel was struck by a single rocket as it plied Gulf waters toward the Saudi oil terminal of Ras Tanura, about 100 km north-east of Qatar. He was forced to use the ship’s emergency steering and shipping sources said he was heading to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.

The sources said the ship was diverted to Dubai because Emirates ports were experienced in inspecting and repairing ships attacked in the 47-month-old war. The Cleo I was attacked eight hours before it was due to dock at Ras Tanura to pick up crude oil and sail back to Sri Lanka.

Lloyd’s intelligence unit in London said the rocket started a fire, but it was quickly extinguished. Iran has been held responsible for seven previous attacks on merchant ships in the Gulf while Iraq, which initiated the tanker war last February, is blamed for the others.

The last Iraqi assault on Friday crippled the Cypriot tanker Amethyst. It was towed to Iran’s Lavan Island where it anchored yesterday. Both the Amethyst, which was struck after loading 50,000 tons of crude at Iran’s main oil export terminal on Kharg Island, and the Panamanian-registered Cleo I were managed by the same company — the Greek Troodos shipping line. The tanker war began in February when Iraq warned that any merchant vessels sailing to or from the Iranian oil terminal on Kharg Island would be attacked. Iraq’s aim is to block Iranian oil revenues and force Teheran to accept a compromise settlement to

Iran in turn said shipping lanes in the Gulf — particularly those leading to countries supporting Iraq — would remain unsafe as long as Iraq continued attacking ships near Kharg. The latest attack followed a meeting in Bagdad of seven Arab Foreign Ministers and the Secretary-Gen-eral of the Arab League on Monday. The group failed to agree on a plan to organise an international campaign aimed at convincing oilimporting nations not to buy Iranian crude, according to an Arab diplomat in Iraq. © The balance in the Gulf war has shifted decidedly in favour of Iraq, according to a report prepared by the staff of the United States Senate Foreign/ Relations Committee.

The report released yesterday attributed the recent change largely to the effects of an arms embargo against Iran led by the United States and because of “massive arms sales to Iraq by the Soviets and French.”