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U.S. Forces In Turkey, Persian Gulf On High Alert
ANKARA, June 22 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - U.S. forces at a southern Turkish base and in the Persian Gulf have been put on a higher state of alert after reports of "threats", a spokesman for the base said on Friday.
"We have increased our threat level yesterday based on reports of threats" concerning the Incirlik base, the spokesman told AFP, without specifying what kind of threats had been received.
The security boost came in the wake of Iraqi claims that 23 Iraqis had been killed and 11 others wounded on Wednesday when U.S. and British warplanes on a routine patrol flight bombed a makeshift football pitch in northern Iraq.
Both Washington and London promptly denied the report.
According to ABCNEWS, U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf also withdrew Navy warships from Gulf ports after administration officials learned of an immediate, though unspecified, "terrorist" threat against Americans.
U.S. military installations in that area were raised to the highest level of alert, "Threatcon Delta", after the threats, which came a day after the U.S. indicted 13 Saudis and one Lebanese national in the 1996 truck bombing of the Khobar Towers, ABCNEWS reported.
The Incirlik spokesman did not specify the level of alert the troops at the Turkish base were now on, or what additional measures had been taken at the base.
But the Anatolia news agency reported that personnel at the base, except those on duty, were prohibited from leaving the grounds during the day.
U.S. embassy officials in Ankara were not immediately available for comment.
The base is host to a force of some 40 British and U.S. planes stationed at Incirlik in southern Turkey, which patrol the no-fly zone imposed on northern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War to protect the region's Kurdish population.
Incirlik was also put on high alert last October - along with U.S. forces in Bahrain and Qatar - in response to threats of attacks in the wake of the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen.
There is a similar exclusion zone in southern Iraq to protect the Shiite Muslim population there, patrolled by U.S. and British aircraft based in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
Iraq does not recognize the no-fly 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 began in December 1998.
Washington says the planes only target military objectives in self-defense, while Iraq counters that civilians are frequently hit.
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