Tuesday September 4 6:41 PM ET

U.S. Jets Attack Northern, Southern Iraq -Pentagon

By Charles Aldinger

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. jets attacked anti-aircraft guns, missile sites and radars in ``no-fly'' zones in northern and southern Iraq on Tuesday in a campaign to disable Baghdad's air defenses, the Pentagon (news - web sites) said.

Navy F-18 and Air Force F-16 jets attacked Iraqi anti-aircraft artillery and missile sites at as-Samawah in the southern no-fly zone about 130 miles southeast of Baghdad, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told Reuters.

In the northern zone, Air Force jets fired ``HARM'' high-speed anti-radiation missiles at three Iraqi air defense radar sites north of the city of Mosul after anti-aircraft guns fired at American planes, U.S. officials said.

``The (southern) strikes with precision-guided munitions were in response to recent Iraqi threats against (U.S. and British) coalition aircraft'' patrolling the zone, Whitman said. ''All aircraft left Iraqi airspace safely.''

F-18s based on the aircraft carrier Enterprise stationed in the Gulf and Air Force F-16 warplanes based near southern Iraq conducted the raids with both bombs and missiles, which are guided to their targets using satellites and laser beams, according to other defense officials.

Iraq said U.S. and British aircraft struck targets in the south of the country on Tuesday wounding four civilians.

``At 15:10 (7:10 a.m. EDT) on Tuesday U.S. and British planes flew over provinces of Basra, Dhi qar, Muthanna and Qadissiya, attacking civilian and service installations at Muthanna province and injuring four civilians,'' said a military spokesman quoted by the official Iraqi news agency INA.

IRAQ SAYS PLANES DRIVEN OFF

The spokesman said Western planes also flew over the northern provinces of Duhouk, Arbeil and Nineveh, but reported no attacks. He said Iraq's anti-aircraft defenses fired at the planes and forced them to return to their bases in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

The U.S. military's Central Command in Tampa, Florida, which is responsible for operations in the Gulf, said damage from the southern raids was still being assessed.

``We have said repeatedly that we reserve the right to respond to threats against U.S. and British pilots at a time and place of our choosing,'' Whitman told Reuters in Washington. He said Tuesday's strikes were in response to recent threats and not any specific action by Iraq that day.

Three other attacks, some also involving British planes, have been conducted against air defenses in southern Iraq since Aug. 25 in response to increasing attempts by the Iraqi military to shoot down planes that have been patrolling no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq for a decade.

No piloted western planes have been downed by Iraqi fire, although Iraq said last week that its gunners had shot down an unmanned U.S. reconnaissance aircraft that crashed in the southern no-fly zone.

In the most recent western air raid, U.S. F-16 jets bombed a radar at Basra airport in southern Iraq on Aug. 30. That airport is used by both civilian and military aircraft, and Iraq announced later the radar had been destroyed.

Raids were also conducted against other air defense targets in the region on Aug. 25 and 28.

On Aug. 27, Iraq said it had shot down a $3.2 million unmanned U.S. ``Predator'' reconnaissance aircraft over southern Iraq. U.S. defense officials conceded that the spy plane was missing and had apparently gone down in Iraq.

The Pentagon has warned of the growing sophistication of Baghdad's air defenses. U.S. and British warplanes conducted major raids in February and again early last month against anti-aircraft targets, including command and control centers that use fiber optic cables to coordinate the air defense network.

-- Anonymous, September 04, 2001