LONDON, November 24 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Behind public preparations for an invasion, British and American aircraft are destroying Iraq's air defenses while covert groups of special forces are training Kurdish fighters and preparing equipment, said a leading British newspaper Sunday, November 24.

"British and American warplanes are attacking Iraq's air defenses almost daily, and making practice runs on other targets," reported The Independent.

"U.S. special forces are reported to be on the ground in western and northern Iraq, and military engineers are preparing and upgrading airfields in the Kurdish zone, " it said.

According to The Independent, "the war on Iraq has, in many ways, already begun."

"This war is a good deal more secret than the very public preparations being made by the U.S. and its allies for an invasion of Iraq," it said.

"No attempt has been made to conceal the build-up of forces in the region, with the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier battle group in the Gulf and four more groups en route or preparing to sail," noted the paper.

"Enough equipment for an armored division is already in Kuwait, and more is on the high seas," according to the paper.

"In Kuwait, 2,200 Marines are conducting a month-long amphibious exercise called Eager Mace '02," it recalled.

"When General Tommy Franks, who would command any assault, arrives in the Gulf next month with 600 of his staff for a "command and control" exercise, it would not be surprising if they were outnumbered by accompanying press and TV crews," said the British newspaper.

"All this helps to maintain the pressure on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's regime," it added.

The paper said that "it would take many weeks, and far more reinforcements, to mount an invasion,", asserting that "what is happening out of the public eye is important."

According to The Independent, "the rules of engagement for coalition aircraft patrolling Iraq's "no-fly" zones were quietly changed."

"The first hint of this was a raid in early September by more than 100 British and American warplanes," it recalled.

"The biggest attack in nearly a year, it was aimed at blinding the main air command and control center in western Iraq - essential, said military analysts, if the regime's Scuds were to be pushed out of range of Israel," the paper said.

The Independent recalled that before "coalition aircraft hit back only at missile or artillery batteries that opened fire on them, or loosed AGM-88 anti-radiation missiles at radar units "locking on" to them."

"British and American aircrews were ordered to hit air defense command bunkers and the fixed communications that link them to missile and gun positions," added the paper.

"The dry announcements by General Franks's U.S. Central Command of each engagement merely speak of attacks "in response to recent hostile actions", and carry a routine assurance that "coalition aircraft never target civilian populations and infrastructure and go to painstaking lengths to avoid injury to civilians and damage to civilian facilities", it said.

"But when the communiqués are strung together, the intent becomes clear: to destroy Iraq's air defenses piece by piece," said The Independent.

It asserted that this "is proving more difficult than expected, because Iraq has a fiber-optic communications network deep underground."

"Several centers have been hit repeatedly by what CentCom calls "precision-guided weapons", probably JDAM "smart bombs", aimed through global positioning satellites, to keep them out of action," said the newspaper.

It asserted that In September and October, "there were more air raids on Iraq than in all of the previous eight months."

The paper stressed that "since Iraq accepted the U.N. resolution on 14 November, U.S. and British planes have gone into action on 10 days out of 11."

"The coalition's technological superiority is such that there is little danger of aircraft being shot down," underlined The Independent.

"Given the volume of British and American attacks, and the risk to Iraq that any hit on a coalition warplane could give Washington an excuse to start a war, some analysts have questioned whether every raid is a response to hostile action by Baghdad," said the newspaper.

"It appears the rules of engagement have been broadened to the point that anything related to a future air campaign can be taken out," it quoted one expert as saying.

The paper quoted U.S. press reports as saying that "pilots from the Abraham Lincoln are staging practice strike missions over Iraq, acquainting themselves with targets they may be called on to attack."

The Independent asserted that "while officially unacknowledged, such activity is scarcely covert."

Reports that U.S. and British special forces are scouting western Iraq for Scud missile launchers were described as implausible by one expert.

However, he said : "I have no doubt that in the Kurdish area, where they can operate freely, special forces are preparing themselves and their equipment and training local fighters to assist them.

"The forces were critical to the success of the Afghanistan campaign, especially in designating targets for air attack," the expert added.