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Iraq Says Four Wounded in U.S., British Airstrikes
BAGHDAD, Sept 4 (News Agencies) - Four Iraqis were wounded in air strikes conducted Tuesday by U.S. and British warplanes on southern Iraq, a military spokesman said, cited by the official INA news agency.
The spokesman said the four were wounded in the "bombardment of civilian installations in Muthanna province."
He added that missiles and anti-aircraft fire had "forced enemy planes to flee after carrying out raids, besides Muthanna, on the provinces of Basra, Zi Qar and Qadissiya."
Other allied aircraft "were forced to turn back under fire from missile batteries and anti-aircraft gunners after carrying out raids on the provinces of Dohuk, Erbil and Niniveh" in northern Iraq.
The U.S. military announced earlier that its warplanes attacked Iraqi air defense sites in northern and southern Iraq in response to Iraqi ground fire and "hostile threats".
The U.S. European Command said coalition warplanes struck "elements of Iraq's integrated air defense" in northern Iraq in response to anti-aircraft artillery fire and after coalition aircraft monitoring a no-fly zone in the north were targeted by Iraqi radar.
In the south, U.S. jets used precision-guided munitions to attack anti-aircraft artillery and surface-to-air missile sites around As Samwah, 209 kilometers (130 miles) southeast of Baghdad, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command said.
The command, based in Tampa, Florida, but responsible for forces in the Gulf, said the attack was "in response to recent Iraqi hostile threats against coalition aircraft monitoring the southern no-fly zone."
It would not say how many sites were struck in the raid.
The raids were the latest episode in a long running U.S. and British campaign to enforce no-fly zones over southern and northern Iraq imposed after the 1991 Gulf War.
Iraq has improved the effectiveness of its air defenses in the past year with fiber optic communications links.
"The concern is that ... their ability to target us is improved," said Colonel Rick Thomas, spokesman for the U.S. Central Command.
"And therefore the ability of these sites to target and potentially hit coalition aircraft is the reason we struck."
U.S. Air Force F-16s and Navy F/A-18s from the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise took part in Tuesday's raid in the south.
In the north, the bombing followed anti-aircraft artillery fire from sites north of Mosul, the European Command's statement said, adding that the patrol planes were also targeted by Iraqi radar.
U.S. aircraft "responded to the Iraqi attacks by delivering ordnance on elements of the Iraqi integrated air defense system," the statement said in the usual formula.
The jets returned safely to their base in Incirlik in Turkey's southern province of Adana, the military said.
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