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BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraq said yesterday it fired missiles and drove away warplanes from the U.S.-British force that monitors the southern no-fly zone of the country. An Iraqi military spokesman said the planes made ten sorties before they were fired on. "Iraqi missiles and anti-aircraft defense resisted the planes, forcing them to go back to their bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait," said the spokesman, as quoted by the official Iraqi news agency INA. Baghdad said the U.S. and British force killed a 12-year-old Iraqi and wounded four civilians Wednesday by bombing a village in the south of Iraq. The U.S. military said Thursday it had dropped no bombs or missiles the day before and that any casualties were likely due to Iraqi ground fire. Iraq called the Pentagon's statement a lie. U.S. and British warplanes patrol no-fly restrictions over the south and north of Iraq. Confrontations with Iraqi anti-air defenses have become a near-daily occurrence since Washington and London's "Operation Desert Fox" in December 1998. Baghdad says U.S.-British raids have since killed 296 and wounded 863 since December 1998. |
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