HIGHLIGHTS: U.S. Command Says Damage to Radar Station Being Determined||Baghdad Says Civilian & Service Installations were Hit||Attacks Becoming More Frequent Fuelling Speculation That Washington May Be Preparing to Invade Iraq|| STORY: U.S. and British warplanes staged an attack on southern Iraq on Friday that Baghdad said struck civilian targets and Washington called a response to threats against western aircraft patrolling a "no-fly" zone. (Read map caption)

The U.S. Central Command, based in Tampa, Florida, said in a statement that warplanes attacked a military air defense radar facility in response to attempts to shoot down U.S. and British warplanes on Thursday.

Damage to the radar command and control target at Al Amarah, about 165 miles southeast of Baghdad, was still being determined, the command said.

An Iraqi military spokesman said in a statement carried by the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) that the planes carried out 42 sorties from bases in Kuwait at 11:20 a.m. on Friday and flew over the provinces of Basra, Nassiriya, Samawa, Amarah and other areas in the south of the country.

"The enemy attacked our civilian and service installations in Amarah," the spokesman said.

No casualties were reported.

The spokesman said Iraq's ground air defenses fired at the planes and forced them to return to their bases.

The attack was the latest in a long series of tit-for-tat exchanges in policing by western warplanes of no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War came.

Baghdad last reported firing by U.S. and British aircraft on the south of the country was on May 31, when it said three people were wounded.

Such exchanges have become more frequent in recent months amid speculation that the United States might be preparing to invade Iraq to overthrow President Saddam Hussein, accused by Washington of developing weapons of mass destruction and sponsoring terrorism.

MAP CAPTION

U.S. warplanes on June 14, 2002 attacked a military air defense radar facility in a 'no-fly' zone in southern Iraq in response to threats against western aircraft patrolling the zone, the U.S. military said. The U.S. Central Command, based in Tampa, Florida, said in a statement that the strike was in response to attempts to shoot down U.S. and British warplanes Thursday. (MapInfo, NASA-Visible Earth/Reuters Graphic)