WASHINGTON, Aug 27 (News Agencies) - An unmanned U.S. surveillance plane has been lost over southern Iraq, a Pentagon official said Monday on the condition of anonymity.
"An unmanned plane didn't return to its base," the official told Agence France-Presse (AFP). "The aircraft was in a mission over southern Iraq."
The official Iraqi News Agency (IRA) reported earlier out of Baghdad that Iraqi anti-aircraft forces had shot down a U.S. spy plane in a region of the southern port city of Basra.
There are almost daily clashes between Iraq and U.S. and British planes patrolling northern and southern no-fly zones, which were declared by the U.S. to enforce the military restrictions imposed on the Iraqi regime after the 1991 Gulf War.
On Aug 17, Iraq announced it would beef up anti-aircraft defenses in a bid to stop U.S. and British warplanes from patrolling the so-called "no-fly" zones.
The Iraqi News Agency (INA) said the U.S. plane was equipped with "high-tech equipment", and was brought down near the southern city of Basra, 550km (340 miles) south of Baghdad.
The Pentagon has yet to officially confirm the event.
Iraqi Information Ministry officials said they were expecting a videotape from the defense ministry, allegedly showing the wreckage of the downed plane; the contents of the tape would then be broadcast on Iraqi television.
A military spokesman told INA, "The air defenses in the area shot down the plane when it was flying a spy mission inside Iraqi airspace."
The Iraqi army spokesman described the plane as "an advanced plane, which the Americans used during their aggression on Yugoslavia."
Western planes patrol two "no fly-zones" in northern and southern Iraq.
Iraq, which does not recognize the zones, says 353 people have been killed and more than 1,000 injured in raids by the U.S. and Britain since 1998.
Baghdad has made repeated allegations that it has hit or brought down British and U.S. planes, but London and Washington have rejected such claims, the BBC online said.
No U.S. or British pilots have been lost since the zones were established 10 years ago, allegedly to protect the areas' Kurdish and Shi'a populations from what Washington describes as "a threat of attack from the Iraqi army".
