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An
Iraqi child leans on a door hit by shrapnel from a bomb which fell
nearby during the 1998 U.S. and British raids on Iraq
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BAGHDAD, August 28 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - British and U.S. warplanes bombed the airport of Iraq’s main northern city of Mosul Tuesday, August 27, an Iraqi transport ministry spokesman said without mentioning any casualties.
Meanwhile, warplanes also hit Iraqi civilian installations in the southern province of Al-Anbar and locations in the north before the aircrafts fled under Iraqi fire, a military spokesman said, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
The strikes came two days after eight Iraqis were killed and nine others were wounded on Sunday, August 25, in U.S. and British air strikes on civilian installations in Basra in southern Iraq.
The U.S. and British war planes have been enforcing no fly zones in the North and South of Iraq since the end of the second Gulf war in 1991. Baghdad does not recognize the zones, which are not sanctioned by any U.N. resolution.
On August 20, three Iraqis were injured in similar air strikes on “civilian installations” in southern Iraq, according to an Iraqi military spokesman.
According to Iraq, U.S.-British raids in the air exclusion zones killed 1,484 Iraqis and wounded 1,425.
At the Mosul airport, the first missile was fired at 0935 GMT on Tuesday, August 27, and a second hit five minutes later, the transport ministry spokesman said.
“U.S. and British warplanes launched a raid Tuesday afternoon on the Mosul airport, destroying the radar system which controls take-offs and landings of planes,” he said.
He added windows were smashed in at the airport’s arrivals hall.
“This act of aggression and terrorism contradicts the rules of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) which assures aerial security,” he added, calling on the U.N. “to condemn this act of terrorism.”
The spokesman warned the strikes would only make Iraqis close rank against the U.S. and British forces.
“The attacks conducted by the evil U.S. administration and its British ally against Iraqi civilians only reinforce our determination to support our commander Saddam Hussein and defend Iraq,” he said.
The U.S. military said U.S. and British aircraft on Tuesday struck an air defense command and control facility in southern Iraq in response to “hostile acts.”
“In response to recent Iraqi hostile acts against coalition aircraft monitoring the southern no-fly zone (coalition) aircraft used precision-guided weapons today to strike an air defense command and control facility” in the southern part of the country, the U.S. Central Command said in a statement.
But the statement made no mention of the bombing of the Mosul airport.
The Mosul airport reopened in November 2000 after being shuttered following the 1991 Gulf War when a U.S.-led global coalition ousted Saddam's troops from Kuwait after a seven month occupation.
It was the third time in as many days that Baghdad has accused British and U.S. warplanes of hitting civilian areas during patrols to enforce the no-fly zones they imposed over both northern and southern Iraq in order to protect the country's Kurds and Shiites after the Gulf War.
