| | Think Twice, it's not an attack out of the blue.
Friday February 16 2:23 PM ET
U.S., British Planes Hit Iraq
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. and British war planes struck Iraqi air
defense facilities south of Baghdad on Friday, hitting targets outside the no-fly
zone, the Pentagon (news - web sites) said.
The Defense Department said aircraft from the two countries struck Iraqi
radar systems at about 12:15 p.m. in retaliation for increased Iraqi
anti-aircraft activity.
It was the third attack on Iraqi targets by U.S. and British planes in the last
week.
Defense officials said it was the first time that they had struck north of the
no-fly zone, bounded by the 33rd parallel, since Operation Desert Fox in
December 1998, when targets in many parts of Iraq were hit.
The new U.S. administration of President George W. Bush (news - web
sites) has said it will take a tougher line against Baghdad, which it believes is
still working to develop weapons of mass destruction, to prevent it from
threatening its neighbors.
``The reason we did this is over the past month and a half or so, we've seen
an increase in Iraqi activity in trying to target coalition planes over the
southern no-fly zone,'' a Pentagon official told reporters on condition of
anonymity.
``Not only an increase in activity but it appeared to be better coordinated
from a command and control standpoint,'' he said.
``Therefore we felt it gave an increased vulnerability to our forces operating
over the south and we wanted to strike that integrated air defense system and
the command and control system that supported that to kind of roll that
capability back and make it a little bit safer for coalition air forces,'' the
official said.
No-fly zones were established in northern and southern Iraq after the 1991
Gulf War (news - web sites), mainly to protect Iraqi minority groups from
military attack by the forces of President Saddam Hussein (news - web
sites). |
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