U.S. Planes Conduct Air Strike on Iraq

By Tabassum Zakaria

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. warplanes bombed a surface-to-air missile site in southern Iraq on Tuesday to knock out a radar that helps Baghdad track and target western aircraft, the Pentagon (news - web sites) said.

``All aircraft exited the area safely,'' Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

The strike, the second in less than a week, was conducted at about 8:15 a.m. EDT at an-Nasiriyah, about 170 miles southeast of Baghdad, he said.

Iraqi radar and anti-aircraft missile bases are located near an-Nasiriyah, U.S. defense officials have said.

A few U.S. Air Force F-16 fighter jets used precision-guided weapons to target a single site, in a strike that was on a smaller scale than last week's bombardment, a defense official said on condition of anonymity.

Precision-guided weapons include missiles and bombs that are directed to precise aiming points by satellites.

On Friday, dozens of U.S. and British warplanes struck three air defense sites in southern Iraq. That followed a strike on targets in northern Iraq earlier last week.

A damage assessment was underway of Tuesday's target, which was a ``fire-control'' radar that provides information used in the firing of surface-to-air missiles.

``This radar was an element of the Iraqi air defense that has been directly contributing to the effectiveness of their integrated air defense systems,'' Whitman said.

The Pentagon has said the Iraqi military has become more aggressive recently in trying to shoot down western planes, and the Western coalition raids have targeted Baghdad's increasingly sophisticated anti-aircraft network.

The United States said in February that Chinese technicians were helping Iraq lay fiber-optic cables to integrate its air defenses.

U.S. Central Command said the strike was conducted ``in response to recent Iraqi hostile threats against coalition aircraft monitoring the southern no-fly zone.''

While no western warplanes have been shot down by Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said recently Iraq was improving its air defenses ``both quantitatively and qualitatively'' with fiber-optic communications cabling.

Pentagon officials have said the Iraqi military came close to hitting a high-altitude U.S. U-2 spy plane with a missile on July 24. Baghdad has denied firing at the plane, saying U.S. officials wanted a pretext for a military attack on Iraq.

``If Iraq were to cease its threatening actions, coalition strikes would cease as well,'' a statement from U.S. Central Command said.

Since the 1991 Gulf War (news - web sites), U.S. and British planes have regularly patrolled ``no-fly'' zones in southern and northern Iraq, which are not recognized by Baghdad.

Iraq was banned from using all aircraft in the zones set up by Western powers to protect minority Kurds and Shiites.

-- Anonymous, August 14, 2001