Airlines Halt Flights After Iraq Warning : Mubarak, Hussein Go to Baghdad for Talk With Leader

Many airlines canceled flights to the capitals of Iran and Iraq today and others are considering doing so following Iraq’s threat to shoot down any aircraft it finds in Iranian airspace starting Tuesday.

A powerful explosion rocked Baghdad today after Iran claimed last week that it fired a missile into the Iraqi capital in retaliation for Iraqi missile attacks on Iranian cities. Later, Iraq said its warplanes bombed “selected targets” in the Iranian capital of Tehran and two other cities, “scoring crushing hits.”

The Iranian news agency said four Iraqi jets were shot down, one of them over Tehran. It gave no other details.

In the face of the heavy fighting, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and King Hussein of Jordan made a surprise trip to Baghdad to get a first-hand assessment of the battle and meet with Iraq’s president, Saddam Hussein.

U.N. Observers Sought

Iraq’s foreign minister, Traiq Aziz, meanwhile, called for a U.N. observer force to verify a cease-fire between the two nations, which have been at war for 4 1/2 years.

In a letter to the U.N. Security Council, he asked for the “organization of negotiations between the two parties . . . with a view to reaching a comprehensive and just settlement.”

Residents in Baghdad reported the explosion shortly before noon, but were unable to determine its source. One foreign resident said the blast was heard at the airport, about nine miles from the city center.

There was no official comment from Iraq.

Many Civilians Killed

Hundreds of civilians have been reported killed in the last two weeks of attacks on civilian targets, and each side has claimed to have killed or wounded more than 12,000 in ground fighting in southeastern Iraq.

Iraq’s air blockade beginning Tuesday would match an “exclusion zone” it imposed around Iran’s Kharg Island oil terminal last January. Iraq says it imposed the sea blockade to cut Iran’s oil export income.

An Iraqi military spokesman warned in a statement distributed by the Iraqi News Agency on Sunday that after 8 p.m. Tuesday any plane “that passes through Iranian airspace will become a possible target in view of the difficulty of distinguishing targets.”

Iran Launches Protest

Iran sent protests today to the International Air Transport Assn. and the International Civil Aviation Organization, complaining that the Iraqi threat was “another inhuman and illegal measure aimed at spreading the war and increasing tension,” according to the Iranian news agency.