The third convoy of reflagged Kuwaiti tankers and its U.S. Navy escorts anchored halfway up the Persian Gulf off the coast of Bahrain Thursday night, their perilous journey halted by bad weather and high seas, shipping sources said.
In Tehran, meanwhile, an Iranian official admitted that his forces sowed mines in the gulf ”to defend ourselves” against attack by the U.S.
United Press International quoted the spokesman for Iran`s Supreme Defense Council, Kamal Kharrazi, as saying his government had no intention of blocking free navigation in the gulf, but that mines would remain there until all foreign forces withdrew.
”So long as foreign forces are in the Persian Gulf and there is a risk of attack on the ports and installations, it is quite natural for us to use such means (as mining) to block such actions,” he said at the War Information Headquarters in central Tehran.
Asked who was responsible for planting the mines, the spokesman said there were different kinds planted ”by Iraqis, possibly by Iranians (and) by the United States. . . . Certainly in order to defend ourselves and our defensive operations we plant such mines.”
On Thursday morning the convoy of reflagged Kuwaiti tankers sailed past Dubai about 40 miles off the coast, where an Iranian frigate attacked and searched a Yugoslav-registered freighter only four hours earlier. The tankers were escorted by six U.S. warships, including the amphibious assault ship Guadalcanal.
The convoy was moving slowly up the gulf behind a formation of mine-hunting Sea Stallion helicopters when low visibility and strong winds forced the choppers to stop their soundings for mines with special sonar sleds, shipping sources said.
The site where the convoy dropped anchor, 40 miles northeast of Bahrain, was the same location where the second convoy of U.S.-escorted tankers was delayed for 38 hours two weeks ago after mines were discovered farther north. The sources said so far there was no evidence of mines along the convoy`s route, but they said the remaining 200 miles to Kuwait`s Al Ahmadi oil terminal were the most dangerous because the shipping channel narrows, reducing the convoy`s maneuverability in case mines are found.
A tanker in the first convoy, the Bridgeton, struck a mine in the same channel last month a few miles west of the Iranian island of Al Farsiyah. It is now partially loaded and poised in Kuwait, along with the tankers of the second convoy, to make its return voyage down the gulf.
As the third convoy dropped anchor, it was being shadowed by an Iranian frigate and a Soviet warship, shipping sources said.
The sources said an Iranian frigate fired cannon shots at the 7,478-ton Bribir, a container ship registered in Rijeka, Yugoslavia, late Wednesday, piercing metal and smashing glass in the mess hall but causing no injuries.
The Iranians apparently fired on the Bribir to force it to stop. The Iranians then boarded the vessel, searched it to determine if it was carrying cargo bound for Iraq–Iran`s enemy in the nearly seven-year gulf war–and allowed it to continue, the sources said.
It was the second such incident in the gulf area in three days. On Tuesday an Iranian gunboat fired on a Norwegian-owned chemical tanker in the Gulf of Oman, just outside the Persian Gulf.
Iran claims it had nothing to do with that attack. But shipping sources said it may have been carried out by Revolutionary Guards acting without official authority.
In Washington, meanwhile, the Pentagon, hoping to quell an internal dispute about how it is directing U.S. forces in the gulf, has decided to install a two-star Navy admiral as the on-scene commander.
Officials told the Associated Press that they expected Rear Adm. Dennis Matthew Brooks, 52, to be named to the position. Brooks is the commander of the Navy`s Carrier Group Five in the Philippines.
