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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Iran
Index
The tanker war seemed likely to precipitate a major
international incident for two reasons. First, some 70 percent of
Japanese, 50 percent of West European, and 7 percent of American
oil imports came from the Persian Gulf in the early 1980s. Second,
the assault on tankers involved neutral shipping as well as ships
of the belligerent states.
The tanker war had two phases. The relatively obscure first
phase began in 1981, and the well-publicized second phase began in
1984. As early as May 1981, Baghdad had unilaterally declared a war
zone and had officially warned all ships heading to or returning
from Iranian ports in the northern zone of the Gulf to stay away
or, if they entered, to proceed at their own risk. The main targets
in this phase were the ports of Bandar-e Khomeini and Bandar-e
Mashur; very few ships were hit outside this zone. Despite the
proximity of these ports to Iraq, the Iraqi navy did not play an
important role in the operations. Instead, Baghdad used Super
Frelon helicopters equipped with Exocet missiles or Mirage F-1s and
MiG-23s to hit its targets.
In March 1984, the tanker war entered its second phase when an
Iraqi Super Etendard fired an Exocet missile at a Greek tanker
south of Khark Island. Until the March assault, Iran had not
intentionally attacked civilian ships in the Gulf. The new wave of
Iraqi assaults, however, led Iran to reciprocate. In April 1984,
Tehran launched its first attack against civilian commercial
shipping by shelling an Indian freighter. Most observers considered
that Iraqi attacks, however, outnumbered Iranian assaults by three
to one.
Iran's retaliatory attacks were largely ineffective because a
limited number of aircraft equipped with long-range antiship
missiles and ships with long-range surface-to-surface missiles were
deployed. Moreover, despite repeated Iranian threats to close the
Strait of Hormuz, Iran itself depended on the sea-lanes for vital
oil exports. Nonetheless, by late 1987 Iran's mine-laying
activities and attacks on ships had drawn a large fleet of Western
naval vessels to the Gulf to ensure that the sea-lanes were kept
open.
Data as of December 1987
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