Iran Foreign Relations Iraq

The death toll Monday rose to 28 aboard the U.S. Navy ship struck by an Iraqi missile, and President Reagan ordered other American vessels in the Persian Gulf to a higher state of alert, warning Iraq and Iran that their planes will be fired on if there is a hint of hostile intent. Twenty-four hours after the Stark, a guided missile frigate, was hit by an Iraqi air-to-sea missile streaking out of the darkness, firefighters still struggled to contain sporadic blazes on the ship.

U.S. warships attacked two strategic Iranian oil platforms today in retaliation for a mine explosion that damaged a Navy frigate and injured 10 American seamen last week, the White House said. Presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said President Reagan "directed U.S. forces at 1 a.m. EDT today to strike" Iranian oil platforms at Sirri and Sassan in the central Persian Gulf.

The captain of the American frigate that was attacked by an Iraqi aircraft in the Persian Gulf said Wednesday that defense systems aboard the ship were fully operational at the time of the raid but that there was not sufficient time to deploy them. In his first public comment since the Sunday attack that left 37 sailors dead, Capt. Glenn R.

After Iran announced last week that it had accepted a cease-fire in its nearly eight-year-old war with Iraq, an official in Kuwait said the news has been received in his country with "an immense collective sigh of relief." The official's remark reflected opinion not only in that tiny sheikdom but throughout the Arab states, militarily weak but wealthy in oil, that line the western shore of the Persian Gulf.

U.S. warships on Tuesday escorted a Kuwaiti tanker southward toward a major Persian Gulf shipping channel where British minesweepers spotted at least one mine, believed planted by Iran, witnesses and shipping sources said. Meantime, suspected Iranian Revolutionary Guards attacked a Greek-flagged tanker in the southern gulf on Tuesday night, just hours after Iraqi warplanes set an Iranian oil tanker aflame in the north, shipping officials reported.

The U.S. helicopter attack on an Iranian mine-laying vessel in the Persian Gulf on Monday left three crewmen dead and two missing, and 10 mines were captured by Navy commandos who boarded the ship, the Pentagon said Tuesday. Iran, warning that it will make America regret its "wicked acts," demanded that the United States hand over the remainder of the ship's crew.

President Saddam Hussein of Iraq threatened Wednesday to order reprisal air strikes against Iranian cities unless Iran stops shelling Iraq's southern port city of Basra. "If they dare to hit Basra again, we will bring down their cities on their heads," Hussein told a group of officers being decorated for their role in repelling an Iranian assault near Basra two weeks ago.

The government claimed it retook 15 square miles of its territory near Basra on the bitterly fought southern front Saturday, but Iran said it killed or wounded 3,000 Iraqi troops in crushing the Iraqi counteroffensive. In the Iraqi capital, celebrants fired automatic weapons into the air after an excited announcer on state-run television proclaimed a "great victory" had saved Basra from threatened Iranian occupation.

The formal cease-fire in the bloody, costly eight-year war between Iraq and Iran went into effect at 7 a.m. local time today (8 p.m. PDT Friday), and U.N. officials were optimistic that it would hold at least temporarily. U.N. truce observers were in place on both sides of the 740-mile border between Iraq and Iran to monitor any violations. And because both sides in the long conflict have observed a virtual truce since the cease-fire agreement was announced Aug.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's call for a holy war against the United States and its Arab allies in the Persian Gulf was rejected Sunday by powerful Muslim religious leaders, even as the Iraqi leader renewed his demand for destruction of the Western "infidels" and their allies. The latest Iraqi attempt to turn the conflict over Kuwait into a 20th-Century version of the Crusades came Sunday when Baghdad Radio broadcast a seven-minute speech by Hussein.