- TEHRAN (Reuters) - Three
missiles fired by U.S. jets taking part in attacks in Iraq landed over
the border in southwestern Iran, Iran's official IRNA news agency said
on Saturday.
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- Quoting an unnamed military commander, IRNA also said
that U.S. and British military jets violated the Islamic Republic's airspace
several times on Friday and Saturday during operations against targets
in southern Iraq.
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- "In two cases, rockets from American planes hit
(southwestern Iran)," the commander said. The rockets fell in the
area of Maniuhi, close to the border with Iraq. The commander gave no further
details and there were no reports of casualties or damage.
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- Another rocket hit an oil refinery depot on Friday evening
in the city of Abadan, about 30 miles east of the southern Iraqi city of
Basra, government officials and witnesses told Reuters. Two guards at the
depot were injured in the blast.
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- In Washington, State Department deputy spokesman Phillip
Reeker said the United States had told Iran it took the report of misfired
missiles landing in Iranian territory seriously and would investigate.
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- "Today, we are sending a second message (to Tehran)
through the Swiss confirming that we are looking into it," Reeker
added. "We take seriously Iranian sovereignty and territorial integrity."
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- Earlier, a Pentagon official said the U.S. military was
investigating indications that a ship-launched American cruise missile
went off course and perhaps landed in Iran.
-
- "A lot of these things have been used since the
air war started. While they are precisely guided, nothing is perfect,"
said the official, who asked not to be identified.
-
- In London, British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said
he could not confirm "suggestions that any of our missiles have gone
astray into Iran."
-
- "Those suggestions, obviously, are being investigated
and we are continuing our contacts with the government there," he
said.
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- Tehran has not publicly accused U.S.-led forces of deliberately
targeting Iran, suggesting that it considers the missiles were strays.
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- Torn by its enmity for both Iraq and the United States,
Iran has condemned the U.S.-led military attack on its western neighbor
but vowed to remain neutral in the conflict.
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- U.S., UK WARNED OVER AIRSPACE
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- "Our border guards are on full alert," the
military commander in the border town of Shalamcheh, northwest of Abadan,
told IRNA.
-
- Iranian officials had previously said it was not clear
where the rocket which hit the Abadan depot had come from.
-
- But IRNA, quoting Abadan Governor Jamal Alami, also blamed
U.S. forces. "Last night an American plane fired a rocket...and it
hit one of the depots," he said.
-
- Oil industry sources, who declined to be named, said
operations at Abadan's refinery were unaffected.
-
- Iran's Foreign Ministry on Friday warned the ambassadors
of Britain and Switzerland -- which represents U.S. interests in Iran --
to respect its airspace.
-
- But a local political analyst in Tehran, who asked not
to be named, said it was unlikely that the rockets had originated from
British or U.S. forces.
-
- "If you look at the trajectory of the military assault
being carried out in Iraq by the British and Americans, these bombs would
have been way off course, which just doesn't seem likely," he said.
-
- He said another possibility was that the rockets came
from Iraqi forces trying to shoot down U.S. and British planes.
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- Iran has little sympathy for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein,
who ordered the use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops in the 1980-1988
Iran-Iraq war.
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- But Tehran also has poor relations with Washington, which
severed diplomatic ties with Iran shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution
and last year included it in the "axis of evil" list along with
Iraq and North Korea.
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