- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S.
and British warplanes dropped thousands of warning leaflets on southern
Iraq and bombed an air defense command center on Thursday after Iraq's
military tried to shoot down planes that dropped the leaflets, the Pentagon
said.
-
- In Baghdad, an Iraqi military spokesman said five civilians
had been killed in an air attack on civilian installations in the south.
-
- The U.S. Central Command said from its headquarters in
Tampa, Florida, that a strike with guided bombs was launched at 4:30 a.m.
EDT, 12:30 p.m. in Iraq, against a military air defense and operations
center near Tallil, about 160 miles southeast of Baghdad.
-
- Defense officials said it was a response to attempts
to shoot down coalition aircraft that dropped 120,000 leaflets warning
the Iraqi military against continuing to fire missiles and artillery at
U.S. and British jets patrolling no-fly zones in northern and southern
Iraq.
-
- "The destruction experienced by your colleagues
in other air defense locations is a response to your continuing aggression
toward planes of the coalition forces," said a sample leaflet made
available by the Pentagon.
-
- 'YOU COULD BE NEXT' -- LEAFLET
-
- "No tracking or firing on these aircraft will be
tolerated. You could be next," the message warned. It included a drawing
of a warplane firing missiles at a radar and anti-aircraft battery on the
ground.
-
- Defense officials said other such leaflets had been dropped
in recent days.
-
- In Baghdad, the Iraqi military spokesman said civilians
were targeted and killed.
-
- "The planes attacked our civilian and service installations
in Nassiriya city, killing five civilians and injuring eleven others,"
the spokesman said in a statement carried by the official Iraqi News Agency
(INA).
-
- Nassiriya city in Dhi qar province is 235 miles south
of Baghdad.
-
- U.S. Defense officials declined to say what kind of aircraft
dropped the leaflets. But officials indicated they did not include the
U.S. military's four-engine C-130 turboprop "Commando Solo" Special
Operations planes used to conduct psychological military operations.
-
- It was the latest in an escalating series of tit-for-tat
exchanges in recent months as speculation has grown the United States may
be preparing to invade Iraq.
-
- The Central Command said the target was a military communications
hub for radar surveillance and anti-aircraft missile sites in the southern
no-fly zone.
-
- 46 STRIKES THIS YEAR
-
- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters last
week he had ordered U.S. aircraft to strike at more "fixed" air
defense targets such as buildings and command and control centers in response
to attempts to shoot down the patrolling American and British jets.
-
- There have now been 46 strikes this year by U.S. and
British aircraft policing two no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq
set up after the 1991 Gulf War. Thirty-six of those have come in the southern
zone.
-
- The frequency of the airstrikes against Iraq has fluctuated
over the decade since the Gulf War, but they have increased sharply in
recent months as speculation has grown that President Bush might order
an invasion to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein , who Washington accuses
of developing weapons of mass destruction.
-
- The no-fly zones, which Baghdad does not recognize, were
imposed to protect a Kurdish enclave in the north and Shi'ite Muslims in
the south from possible attacks by the Iraqi government.
-
- "Today's strike came after Iraqi air defenses fired
anti-aircraft artillery and surface-to-air missiles at coalition aircraft
in the southern no-fly zone," the command said in a statement.
-
- "Coalition strikes in the no-fly zones are executed
as a self-defense measure in response to Iraqi hostile threats and acts
against coalition forces and their aircraft."
-
- The last strike in the southern no-fly zone was against
a military mobile radar near Al Kut on Tuesday.
-
-
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