U.S. Planes Bomb Iraqi Site in No-Fly Zone

The Associated Press ^ | Jun 26, 2002

[Printers Angel]

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - U.S. warplanes bombed an air defense site in northern Iraq on Wednesday after coming under attack from Iraqi anti-aircraft artillery, the U.S. military said. The attack in Ain Zalah, close to Iraq's border with Syria, came during a routine patrol of the zone, the Stuttgart, Germany-based U.S. European Command said in a statement. The planes, based at Incirlik air base in southern Turkey, left the area safely.

U.S. and British warplanes have been monitoring "no fly" zones over southern and northern Iraq since shortly after the 1991 Gulf War to protect the Kurdish minority and Shiite Muslims.

Also Wednesday, the state-run al-Iraq newspaper quoted President Saddam Hussein as predicting that American pressure on Iraq would increase. He called on his countrymen to stand fast.

"The U.S.-Zionist conspiracies against Iraq will be more aggressive because they (the Americans) now see a more united and developing Iraq," Saddam said during a Cabinet meeting Tuesday night, the paper reported.

Saddam called upon Iraqis to resist U.S. policies, "which are targeting Iraq because it has undertaken the task of defending the Arabs' rights."

The United States accuses Iraq of producing and possessing weapons of mass destruction. President Bush has called Iraq part of an "axis of evil" and has warned Saddam of unspecified consequences if he does not allow U.N. inspectors into Iraq to check for weapons.

Tough U.N. economic sanctions were imposed on Iraq for its invasion of neighboring Kuwait in 1990. They cannot be lifted unless U.N. inspectors verify that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction.

The inspectors left the country ahead of U.S.-British airstrikes in December 1998. They have been barred from returning since then.

Iraq considers patrols over the no-fly zone to be violation of its sovereignty and frequently tries to shoot them down.