US PLANES SIGHT NEW OIL SLICK IN PERSIAN GULF

United States Coast Guard pilots have detected the most potentially damaging Gulf oil slick yet, beneath dense smoke pouring from burning Kuwaiti oilfields. Experts at an environmental conference in Bahrain on Feb. 26 said a slick tens of miles long was sighted Sunday by planes searching for further pollution damage to the Gulf environment.

According to movement maps worked out by a Saudi-based research team, the new oil could drift past Qatar to the southern half of the Gulf.

The new slick lies about 55 miles due east of the Saudi-Kuwait border and could threaten the southern Gulf and the southeast coasts of Iran by the end of June, said Abdullah Dabbagh, chief of research at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals.

Wind and tides have so far kept the other confirmed slicks in the northern Gulf, hitting parts of the Saudi and Iranian coasts, and threatening Bahrain and Qatar.