Iraq reports attack on naval target

Press, 8 October 1987, Page 6

Iraq reports attack on naval target

NZPA-Reuter Bahrain Iraq announced a successful attack on a large vessel off the Iranian coast after vowing to avenge two missile strikes against Bagdad in the Gulf war. The Iraqi news agency, monitored by the British Broadcasting Corporation, said aircraft scored accurate and effective hits yes-, terday against a big naval target — the term usually taken to refer to an oil tanker.

It was Iraq’s first reported attack since planes blitzed Iran’s Hormuz oil terminal at the mouth of the Gulf on Monday, damaging at least five supertankers. The new report came as seven Japanese tankers prepared to sail into the Gulf to pick up oil from the Hormuz terminal. The ships are to sail in convoy under rules agreed in Tokyo, where seamen and shipowners decided to ban operations

in the waterway. Only on Monday up to nine loaded Japanese supertankers had been sighted sailing north of Dubai to leave the Gulf in compliance with the ban. They were spotted just hours before Iraqi fighterbombers struck Iran’s storage tankers lying between Hormuz and Larak islands in the mouth of the Gulf. Iraq’s long-range strike was the heaviest one-off raid it has carried out