The World - News from May 9, 1988

Iraq said its warplanes attacked two tankers near an important Iranian oil-loading terminal in the Persian Gulf, but shipping sources could not immediately confirm the strike. A military spokesman in Baghdad said the planes attacked the naval targets--Iraq’s standard term for oil tankers or freighters in Iranian service--near Iran’s Lavan Island oil-loading terminal. The last confirmed Iraqi strike on gulf shipping was on the 259,449-ton Cypriot supertanker Amax on March 30. There have been no reported Iranian attacks in the so-called tanker war since the Reagan Administration announced last month that it was extending U.S. naval protection to neutral shipping in the gulf.