By Associated Press

November 27, 2002, 3:33 AM EST

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Air raid sirens sounded over the Iraqi capital Wednesday as international arms monitors began their first inspections under a strict new U.N. resolution.

"There was a hostile flight over the capital," said an Iraqi Civil Defense official, who refused to give his name. He did not elaborate.

The sirens usually mean allied planes have struck somewhere in the vicinity of the city. But there was no immediate word of a strike from U.S. or British officials and no explosions could be heard in central Baghdad .

A spokesman for the U.S. Joint Task Force at the Prince Sultan air base outside Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, refused to comment.

A thin, white line of smoke could be seen in the sky, but its source was unclear.

Since the Gulf War, strikes have been rare on a near Baghdad, which is outside the no-fly zones that have in recent weeks seen several skirmishes between allied planes and Iraqi anti-aircraft units.

In February, in what at the time was the largest U.S.-British attack in months, two dozen warplanes fired long-range missiles targeting radar systems to the south and north of the capital that had boosted Iraqi capabilities to threaten allied aircraft patrolling the no-fly zones, the U.S. Defense Department said then.

The international inspectors who went to work in Baghdad Wednesday morning are trying to assess whether the Baghdad government is still committed to chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. The United States has warned it will disarm Iraq by force if the inspections fail.

The monitors are back after a four-year break under a mandate from the U.N. Security Council to test the Baghdad government's contention that it has no arsenals of weapons of mass destruction, or programs to build them.

Saturday, allied planes bombed a mobile radar system in southern Iraq. The U.S. Central Command said the strike came after Iraq moved mobile radar into the southern no-fly zone. The radar provides tracking and guidance for surface-to-air missile systems that can target the planes, the statement said.

The southern no-fly zone was established to support a U.N. Security Council resolution and protect the area's Shiite Muslims, whose revolt after the 1991 Gulf War was crushed by government forces. A northern zone is enforced north of the 36th parallel to protect the Kurdish population who also had attempted a postwar uprising that was crushed.

Iraq claims the zones are illegal and frequently fires on the patrolling pilots. None has been brought down.

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2002