3 Iraqis Injured in US, British Air Strikes

Three people were injured when warplanes of the United States and Britain bombed northern Iraq on Thursday, an Iraqi military spokesman said in Baghdad.

The spokesman told the official Iraqi News Agency that US and Britain "committed a new crime" by bombing "civil and service" installations in northern Iraq, without mentioning the specific locations.

Iraqi anti-aircraft artillery opened fire at the hostile planes and "forced them to flee to their bases in Turkey," the spokesman said.

The northern no-fly zone, which covers the provinces of Dohuk, Neineva and Erbil, was set up by the US-led Western allies after the 1991 Gulf War with the claimed aim of protecting the Kurds from the persecution of the Iraqi government.

A similar air exclusion zone was also established in southern Iraq to allegedly protect the Shiite Muslim there.

Iraq has never recognized the two no-fly zones and has regularly opened fire at the Western planes enforcing them.

Thursday's air raids by the US and Britain followed the military strikes by the two Western allies on February 4 when four people were killed.

US President George W. Bush, in his first State of the Union address on January 29, branded Iraq, Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea as "an axis of evil," accusing the three countries of seeking weapons of mass destruction and warning that they could be targets of the US-led war on terrorists.

US Military Confirms Bombing of Iraqi Targets

US warplanes bombed Iraqi air defense targets on Thursday to retaliate for Iraqi anti-aircraft fire, the US military said.

The Germany-based US European Command said in a statement that the targets were located near the Iraqi city of Mosul, about 250 miles (about 400 kilometers) north of Baghdad.

It said that the US planes patrolling the so-called no-fly zone dropped bombs after they were fired on by Iraqi forces on the ground.

All the US planes have safely returned to the Incirlik base in Turkey, the command said.

(Xinhua News Agency March 1, 2002)