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Twenty Three Iraqis Killed In U.S.-British Raids: Iraq
BAGHDAD, June 20 (News Agencies) - A U.S.-British air raid over northern Iraq left 23 Iraqis dead and 11 others wounded, the official INA news agency said Wednesday, in a report promptly denied by Washington and London.
The Iraqis were killed when warplanes hit a piece of land being used as a football pitch in Tel Afr, 28 miles west of Mosul, INA said.
The agency denounced the bombing as "another vile crime carried out by the United States and its ally Britain against the combatant Iraqi people."
Tel Afr residents "buried their dead on Wednesday ... shouting out their anger against this American and British crime," INA said, not specifying when the attack took place.
But the Pentagon was quick to deny Iraq's claim, dubbing it a "fabrication", while a U.S. military spokesman in Ankara said neither U.S. nor British warplanes had bombed northern Iraq on Tuesday or Wednesday.
"Any claims of deaths caused by (U.S. and British) forces in the north is a fabrication," said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.
"There were no coalition strikes in the north yesterday," said Whitman. "Any claims coalition forces killed anyone in the north is simply false."
The spokesman at Turkey's Incirlik airbase, from which both U.S. and British aircraft fly surveillance missions over northern Iraq, said no munitions had been dropped in patrols on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Warplanes had flown over northern Iraq but were "not engaged at all" by Iraqi defenses, nor did they fire at those defenses, the U.S. spokesman said.
"No missile, no bomb, no munitions of any sort was released by the aircraft," he added.
A British defense ministry spokeswoman said: "We can confirm that coalition aircraft were fired upon but did not retaliate" in incidents which took place on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The alleged incident comes as Iraq is fighting U.S. and British attempts to modify the international sanctions imposed on President Saddam Hussein's regime since its invasion of Kuwait in 1990 to make them more effective.
There are almost daily clashes between Iraq and U.S. and British planes patrolling the northern and southern exclusion zones aimed at enforcing the military restrictions imposed on regime after the 1991 Gulf War.
Baghdad does not recognize the zones, and claims that 350 people have been killed and more than 1,000 injured in raids by the Americans and British since 1998.
An Iraqi military spokesman said Tuesday anti-aircraft defenses had hit a British or U.S. warplane during bombing raids on civilian targets in the north of the country.
Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz had earlier called on U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to put an end to the U.S.-British raids, dubbing them an "aggressive policy ... against Iraq that has become a staple since 1991."
"The Iraqi government completely rejects the so-called no-fly zones imposed unilaterally by the United States and Britain," Aziz said.
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