BAGHDAD, May 29 (AFP) - Two civilians were killed in a U.S.led air strike
on "civilian installations" in northern Iraq on Monday, an Iraqi military
spokesperson is reported to have said.
"The U.S. and British aggressors committed a new crime against our people
by bombing civilian installations and services, killing two peaceful
civilians," said the spokesperson, adding that warplanes entered Iraq from
Turkey and carried out 18 sorties over the northern provinces of Dahuk,
Arbil and Niniveh. The location of the deadly strike was not disclosed.
The U.S. military said earlier that its fighter jets bombed northern Iraq
after coming under Iraqi fire during patrols over the no-fly zone in the
region.
The aircraft -dropped ordnance on elements of the Iraqi integrated air
defense system- after Iraqi forces fired artillery from sites near
Bashiqah, the Stuttgart-based U.S. European Command said. All the planes
returned safely to base in Incirlik in southern Turkey, it added.
Some 40 British and U.S. planes are based at Incirlik to patrol the
northern no-fly zone imposed on Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War to protect the
region
's Kurdish population.
A similar exclusion zone was also set up over southern Iraq to protect the
Shiite Muslim population there and is patrolled by U.S. and British
aircraft based in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
Iraq does not recognize the zones, which are not authorized by any specific
U.N. resolution, and has regularly fired on aircraft patrolling them since
joint U.S. British air raids on Baghdad in December 1998. The U.S. says the
planes only target military objectives in self-defense, but the Iraqis say
civilians and civilian installations are frequently hit.
Wassalamu'alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarokaatuh
(DI-31/05/00)
