- BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Six Iraqi
civilians were killed and 15 wounded in an overnight raid by U.S. and British
planes on the southern port city of Basra, an Iraqi military spokesman
said on Tuesday.
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- The spokesman, in a statement on the state Iraqi News
Agency, said the planes patrolling a "no-fly" zone over southern
Iraq entered Iraqi airspace at 9:45 p.m. (1845 GMT) on Monday and later
targeted civilian sites in the province of Basra.
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- He said Iraqi anti-aircraft units fired at the planes
which returned to bases in Kuwait.
-
- The United States military said warplanes taking part
in U.S.-British air patrols on Monday attacked five air defense targets
in the southern no-fly zone in response to anti-aircraft fire from the
ground.
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- The strikes were the latest in an increasing series of
western air attacks in no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq as the
United States and Britain build a force of more than 220,000 troops in
the Gulf for a possible invasion of Iraq.
-
- The U.S. Central Command said aircraft used precision-guided
weapons to strike four fiber optic communications centers near Al Kut about
95 miles southeast of Baghdad and a military command and control center
near Basra about 245 miles southeast of Baghdad.
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- The Central Command said from its headquarters in Tampa,
Florida, that the targets were attacked after Iraqi forces fired anti-aircraft
artillery at western warplanes.
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- "The specific targets were struck because they enhanced
Iraq's integrated air defense network," a U.S. military spokesman
told Reuters.
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- "Target damage assessment is ongoing," he said
of the strikes, adding that all of the warplanes had safely departed the
target area.
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- The no-fly zones were set up after the 1991 Gulf War
to protect Kurds in northern Iraq and Shiite Muslims in the south from
Baghdad's forces. Iraq does not recognize the zones.
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