Iraq Says It Destroyed Iran’s Kharg Island Terminal

MANAMA, Bahrain — Iraq said Thursday that its jet warplanes demolished Iran’s main oil export terminal at Kharg Island in the northeastern sector of the Persian Gulf.

There was no immediate comment from Iran, and the Iraqi report could not be independently verified.

“Our warplanes struck . . . and turned Kharg into wreckage,” a military spokesman in Baghdad said in an Iraqi News Agency dispatch monitored here.

The Iraqi agency also claimed it had film of the attack showing “accurate hits by the Iraqi jets and smoke billowing from the eastern and western docks. The film also showed that a tanker moored in one of the docks was hit.

No Iranian Comment

Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency, contacted by telex from Nicosia, Cyprus, said that it had no knowledge about the purported raid.

In Washington, a State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he doubts that the terminal had been blown up, “based on the solidarity of the defenses.”

The U.S. official said there was no confirmation from American officials in the region and “I wouldn’t hold my breath” waiting for it.

One U.S. oil industry source, who asked not to be named, also voiced doubts on the Iraqi report saying “It would take a tremendous amount of pounding to destroy Kharg Island.”

Oil workers contacted at Ras Tannurah, a giant Saudi Arabian oil port across the gulf and about 200 miles south of Kharg Island, said they saw no signs of a heavy air strike at the Iranian facility, raising even more doubts about the Iraqi claim.

However, one marine salvage executive who spoke on condition he not be identified said that “one vessel radioed messages of unusual activity in the air near . . . Kharg Island, but it is too early for us to say with certainty that Kharg proper has been raided.”

Iraq has vowed repeatedly to choke off Iran’s economy by blocking its crude-oil exports, and has wrecked scores of oil tankers and bulk carriers near Kharg Island and other Iranian ports on the gulf.