- BAGHDAD (AFP) -- US and British
warplanes killed seven Iraqis and wounded four others in air raids on "civilian
installations" in the southern province of Najaf, a military spokesman
said Saturday.
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- "Seven civilians were killed and four others wounded"
in the raid by US and British planes on Friday night in Najaf province,
some 200 km south of Baghdad, the spokesman said, cited by the state INA
news agency.
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- "The American and British murderers have committed
a new crime against the Iraqi people," he said.
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- The planes, based in Kuwait, carried out 48 sorties against
several targets in the south, he added.
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- "Our missile batteries and anti-aircraft defences
resisted these planes, forcing them to flee to their bases," he said.
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- The Pentagon had said on Friday that US warplanes bombed
an air defence communications facility in southern Iraq after coalition
aircraft came under Iraqi fire in what it described as a violation of last
week's UN Security Council resolution.
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- The US Central Command said the target of the strike
was an air defence communications facility in Najaf.
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- A defence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity,
said US warplanes have come under surface-to-air fire from Iraqi forces
11 times since UN Security Council Resolution 1441 was passed November
8.
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- Besides setting out the terms of new UN arms inspections,
the resolution ordered Iraq not to take or threaten hostile acts against
any member state "taking action to uphold any council resolution."
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- The latest US air strike was the second since the resolution
was unanimously approved by the 15-member UN Security Council.
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- Iraq has routinely fired on US and British aircraft over
southern and northern Iraq since 1998, when it shut down the first UN arms
inspection regime.
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- The no-fly zones were imposed by the Western powers after
the 1991 Gulf War to stop Iraqi attacks on Shiite Muslim and Kurdish minorities
but are not explicitly covered by any UN resolution.
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