U.S.-British
Raids Kill Four Civilians in Northern Iraq
An
Iraq child demonstrates against America in
front of the U.N. Headquarters in Baghdad, Jan. 13, 2002.
BAGHDAD,
Feb. 4 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Four Iraqi civilians were
killed Monday in air raids by U.S. and British warplanes in the
north of the sanctions-hit country, an Iraqi military spokesman
said.
"Four Iraqi civilians were killed in bombing by enemy planes of
civilian installations in the city of Mosul," located 400
kilometres (250 miles) north of Baghdad, the spokesman said, quoted
by the state INA news agency.
He said the air strikes targeted the provinces of Dohuk, Erbil and
Nineveh, but surface-to-air "missile batteries and
anti-aircraft guns were put into action and forced the enemy planes
to flee toward their base in Turkey," Agence France Presse
(AFP) reported.
The U.S. military said earlier that U.S. warplanes had struck Iraqi
air defenses in northern Iraq after coalition aircraft reportedly
came under fire while patrolling a no-fly zone.
"Iraqi forces fired anti-aircraft artillery from sites
northeast of Mosul while Operation Northern Watch (ONW) aircraft
conducted routine enforcement of the northern no-fly zone," AFP
quoted the U.S. European Command as saying.
The last raid by U.S. and British planes, which resulted in deaths,
was conducted in October 2001, when two people were killed and
another was wounded in the south of the country.
According to Baghdad, Monday's death raises the death toll from the
U.S.-British strikes to 372 people, along with 1,057 wounded since
the December 1998 U.S.-British blitz on Iraq.
Near-daily incidents pit Iraq against U.S. and British fighter
planes which overfly the two exclusion zones enforced by Washington
and London after the 1991 Gulf War in the north and south of the
country.
Baghdad does not recognize the air exclusion zones, which are not
sanctioned by any U.N. resolution.
