By
The Associated Press
BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. and British warplanes bombed a target in southern
Iraq yesterday, but officials from the two sides disagreed about what was hit.
An Iraqi military spokesman said the planes struck "civil and service installations," the official Iraqi News Agency reported. But the U.S. Central Command said the planes attacked a "surface-to-air missile support facility" after coming under fire earlier yesterday.
In a statement faxed to The Associated Press in Cairo, the Florida-based command said the attack was launched to "further degrade Iraq’s ability to jeopardize coalition pilots and aircraft enforcing United Nations mandates."
U.S. and British warplanes enforce no-fly zones over north and south Iraq to protect groups opposed to the Baghdad government. Iraq does not recognize the zones and has been challenging the planes since December 1998. The U.S. statement said Iraq has violated the southern no-fly zone more than 700 times during that period.
The Iraqi statement claimed the allied planes involved in yesterday’s strike were driven off: "Our heroic missile force confronted the enemy and forced (the attacking aircraft) to flee to their hide-outs of vice and evil in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait."
Neither the Iraqi nor the U.S. statement specified the location of the strike or gave any word of casualties. The U.S. statement said only that "battle damage assessment is ongoing."
