Word: kharg
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...coming closer," Iraq's President Saddam Hussein boasted last week, when his country will have the weapons to destroy Iran's big oil terminal at Kharg Island. He was probably exaggerating Iraqi capabilities, but his words were enough to send cold chills through Reagan Administration officials, who are still pondering how to deal with this latest and most dangerous phase of the 44-month-old war between Iran and Iraq. Saddam Hussein's fighting words also marked a resumption, after a respite of five days, of the devastating tanker war in the Persian Gulf. Twenty-four hours...
...Gulf last week, no tanker was safe from missile fire as the 43-month-old war between Iran and Iraq took an alarming new direction. For months, Iraq's President Saddam Hussein had been threatening to attack any vessels using Iran's big oil-exporting facility at Kharg Island. The government of Iran's Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini had vowed, in turn, that it would respond to such an attack by blockading the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the gulf, choking off the oil lifeline to Japan and parts of Western Europe...
...next day, the Iraqis retaliated by attacking two tankers in the vicinity of Kharg Island. Both the Greek-owned Esperanza No. 2 and the Iranian-owned Tabriz were set ablaze. The ships were in the area where the Al Ahood, hit a week earlier, was still floundering and in danger of breaking up. Later that day, a Kuwaiti tanker, the Bahrah, was struck by a rocket after being circled by two unidentified planes. One aircraft returned to fire a second rocket, but the ship was able to continue to a Kuwaiti port. The Kuwaiti Cabinet subsequently issued a statement blaming...
Ever since last October, when the French delivered five Super Etendard fighter planes, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has been threatening to use the sophisticated weaponry to stop Iran from exporting oil from its Kharg Island terminal. That threat roused international concern. If Saddam Hussein proved as bad as his word, the war between Iraq and Iran might extend to other parts of the Persian Gulf and affect oil shipments of such Iraqi neighbors and benefactors as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Last week those fears came closer to facts. Baghdad sent the French planes into action, striking two ships...
...first word that Iraq had used the Super Etendards came in a military communiqué boasting that the planes had attacked "two naval targets" near Kharg Island. In fact, a low-flying missile fitting the description of a radar-controlled Exocet reportedly hit a 41,000-ton Greek tanker, Filikon L., that was more than 70 miles away from Kharg Island. The ship, under contract to the Kuwait Petroleum Corp., had just loaded up with fuel at the Kuwaiti port of Mina al Ahmadi. Damage proved relatively minor, but a second ship hit in the same attack...