MANAMA, Bahrain -- A missile, believed to be a Silkworm fired by Iran, slammed into a U.S.-flagged tanker in Kuwaiti waters today, wounding up to 18 crewmen, including the American master, U.S. and Kuwaiti officials said.
Both the United States and Kuwait accused Iran of firing the missile that struck the re-flagged Kuwaiti tanker Sea Isle City at the same spot a missile struck another tanker Thursday. Iran also was accused of that attack.
'It looks like a major escalation by the Iranians,' U.S. Ambassador to Bahrain Sam Zakhem said in a telephone interview.
A U.S. Central Command spokesman said 18 crewmen were injured in the missile attack on the 80,000-ton Sea Isle City. Col. John Head said 11 of the 18 were hospitalized, four of them with critical injuries.
'None of the Americans aboard the tanker were on active duty with the U.S. Navy,' Head said.
The Kuwaiti news agency, KUNA, quoting oil industry sources, identified three injured Americans on the ship as the master, John Hart, First Mate William Chrysler and Chief Petty Officer Robert Stanley.
'The Sea Isle City captain is critically wounded and has undergone urgent surgery,' said Kuwait Health Minister Abdul Rahman Alawadi. He said doctors were fighting to save his life.
The British chief engineer also was injured and all four were taken to the Addan and Kuwait Oil Co. hospitals, where Hart and the engineer were in intensive care, KUNA said. Thirteen Filipino seaman and a Pakistani also were injured in the blast, it said.
In the southern gulf near the port of Dubai, an Iranian warship fired shots at a helicopter carrying an NBC News television crew but the bullets went wide and caused no injuries or casualties, an NBC spokesman said.
In the same area, the French mine sweeper Garigliano discovered two mines, suspected of being planted by Iran, close to the United Arab Emirates port of Khor Fakkhan, U.S. Navy sources said.
Rashid Abdul Aziz al Rashid, Kuwait's minister of state for Cabinet affairs, said, 'Iran today fired a missile and hit a U.S.-flagged tanker wounding the captain and 17 other sailors, some of them seriously, in addition to material damage.'
But in Tehran, Iranian President Ali Khamenei said only that no one had claimed responsibility for the attack.
'Where the missile comes from, the almighty knows better,' the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Khamenei as saying during prayers today.
IRNA, however, also quoted Khamenei as saying, 'We have declared that they (the United States and its allies) should not expect us to watch our ships being attacked and other ships remain safe. This is the nature of the tension and how it spreads in the region.'
The White House said President Reagan's national security adviser informed him of the attack shortly after midnight.
Deputy White House spokesman Dan Howard said U.S. officials were taking a 'cautious approach' to any response the United States might take, while not 'ruling anything in or out.'
Lloyd's of London shipping intelligence unit said it believed the missile was from Iran. The authoritative London-based Institute for International Strategic Studies says Iran has up to 200 Chinese-made Silkworms at its disposal.
A Kuwaiti official source quoted by the Kuwaiti news agency said the attack occurred at dawn at Kuwait's Shuaiba anchorage and the missile that hit the Sea Isle City was the same type as the one that hit a U.S.-owned, Liberian-flagged supertanker, the Sungari, on Thursday in the same area.
Kuwait said that missile also was fired from Iranian territory.
Western military sources also confirmed the missile was the same kind as the one fired Thursday, also said to be a Silkworm.
Kuwait Prime Minister and Crown Prince Sheikh Saad al Abdullah al Sabah called an emergency session of the Kuwaiti Cabinet to discuss the 'repeated serious Iranian aggression,' KUNA said.
A statement issued later said the 'aggression ... constitutes a serious threat to the security and stability of the region.'
Oil prices rose on the escalating gulf tensions. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, West Texas intermediate -- the benchmark U.S. crude for immediate delivery -- was up 12 cents to $19.87 a barrel in the first hour of trading today.
'The market is not reacting as strongly as a lot of traders felt it would,' said Peter Beutel, analyst at Elders Futures Inc. in New York. 'The fact that the Iranian hit on the American-flagged tanker hasn't taken the market over $20 a barrel is disappointing.'
Pentagon spokesman and Navy Cmdr. Bill Harlow said the Sea Isle City was struck at about 6 a.m. as the ship left anchorage to move to a fuel pier. The tanker had been escorted through the gulf by U.S. Navy vessels, which ended their escort duty Tuesday and returned down the war-ravaged waterway.
'The extent of damage to the tanker is unknown, although first reports indicated there was a fire which now appears to be out,' he said.
The Sungari was attacked Thursday while moored at the Shuaiba anchorage in the northern Persian Gulf, shipping officials said. Fire aboard the 275,932-ton supertanker was brought under control within several hours.
In Washington, Pentagon officials said they believed the missile that struck the Sungari was a Chinese-made Silkworm.
The Sungari attack was the first Iranian strike on a ship in Kuwaiti waters since the start of the Iran-Iraq war seven years ago and the first direct hit on a U.S.-owned ship since American naval forces in July began escorting Kuwaiti tankers registered in the United States and flying the U.S. flag.
The U.S.-flagged Bridgeton, one of the Kuwaiti supertankers, was struck by a mine during the maiden U.S. convoy mission through the gulf in July. U.S. officials said they believed the underwater explosive was planted by Iran.
The Sungari attack came less than 12 hours after Iraqi warplanes hit the Liberian-flagged, British-operated 231,990-ton Pegasus 1 with a French-made Exocet missile in the waiting zone at Iran's oil loading terminal at Kharg Island, also in the northern gulf.
Iran Thursday reported the attack on the Sungari without claiming responsibility. But the Tehran daily newspaper Ettela'at quoted Iranian naval commander Malek Zadegan as saying Iran's 'sophisticated missile systems in the Persian Gulf are ready to confront U.S. aggressions.'
Asked about the Sungari attack Thursday, President Reagan said, 'Our policy is still we're going to defend ourselves if attacked.'
Pentagon spokesman Fred Hoffman, in response to questions about possible U.S. retaliation for the Sungari attack, said, 'There is no response indicated at this point. Our shipping has not been struck by the Silkworm and is not affected.'
Iran has targeted Kuwaiti shipping because of Kuwait's support for Iraq in the bitter Iran-Iraq war.
Kuwait filed a barrage of protests against Thursday's attack on the Sungari to the United Nations and other international organizations.
Iran is believed to have fired Silkworms at Kuwait earlier this year from occupied Iraqi territory on the Faw peninsula in the northern gulf area. Iran also is believed to have Silkworms deployed off the Strait of Hormuz which connects the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman to the south.
In New York, meanwhile, Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar said Thursday he has received 'fresh instructions' from the U.N. Security Council and will begin negotiating a cease-fire date to end the war between Iran and Iraq. The U.N. official's peace mission to the gulf this summer failed to win a cease-fire.
In Tehran, Iranian Prime Minister Hussein Musavi dismissed Perez de Cuellar's efforts.
'Iran has no information about such an informal plan and if it were true, it would dismay us,' he said.
Radio Tehran said Musavi reiterated Iran's stand that there is 'no possibility' of a cease-fire with Iraq until the aggressor in the conflict is identified by the United Nations.
'As we have declared before, the possibility of accepting a cease-fire prior to announcing the aggressor does not exist for us,' Musavi said.
