Word: iraqi
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Iraq revived the tanker war on Aug. 29 after a 45-day lull that coincided with the U.S. military buildup and the Security Council resolution. Iraqi fighter jets swooped down over three Iranian oil facilities in widely separated locations. In the southern gulf, they set ablaze the tanker Alvand at Sirri Island as the ship was being loaded with Iranian oil. In the central gulf, they attacked an oil-loading facility on the island of Lavan. In the north they bombed and strafed the island of Farsi, used by Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a base for speedboat assaults against gulf...
...week's end Iraq claimed to have disabled twelve "maritime targets," though independent sources could confirm only seven hits, one of them a small supply boat on which two crewmen were killed. The Iraqi air force, whose active warplanes outnumber Iran's almost 10 to 1, also bombed and set ablaze the main Iranian oil-processing facility on Kharg Island and attacked what a military communique described as "economic and industrial targets" around the Iranian cities of Ahwaz and Isfahan...
...often no markings indicating country of origin, are Iran's chief weapon in the gulf. The boats made hit-and-run attacks against Greek, Cypriot, Italian, Spanish, South Korean and Japanese vessels. On Friday, Iran for the first time launched one of its Chinese-made Silkworm missiles from occupied Iraqi territory on the Fao peninsula. The missile plunged harmlessly into the water off a Kuwaiti beach. Most of the ships hit by Iran were sailing to or from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, which are allies of Iraq. Iran also renewed its artillery bombardment of the Iraqi city of Basra. Late...
...Washington, the reaction to the Iraqi resumption of the tanker war was thinly disguised exasperation. After the initial Iraqi air attacks, Richard Murphy, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, summoned Iraqi Ambassador Nazir Hamdoon to his office for a firm dressing down. Under Secretary of State Michael Armacost later summed up the U.S. view by saying the Iraqi action was "very regrettable, extremely unfortunate." The timing of the raids was "deplorable," he said, both because they create a new threat to U.S. warships in the gulf and because they came at a moment when Iran...
Iran also came under attack in the Persian Gulf last week when Iraqi jets hit the Iranian island of Sirri, 80 miles northwest of Dubai. The strike, which set ablaze an Iranian tanker, threatened to heat up the tanker war, which has been quiet since early July. If Iran retaliates, a primary target may be the reflagged Kuwaiti tankers and their U.S. escorts...