WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. F-16 warplanes attacked a radar at a military-civilian airport near Basra in southern Iraq on Thursday in the second such raid against Baghdad's air defenses this week, U.S. defense officials said.(Read map caption below)
The officials, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters four F-16 jets conducted the raid with precision-guided weapons at the field, used by both military and civilian aircraft, and returned safely to base in a neighboring country.
It was part of a continuing attempt to halt Iraq's aggressive efforts to shoot down U.S. and British warplanes patrolling two ``no-fly'' zones in Iraq for nearly a decade.
A brief announcement by the U.S. military's Central Command in Tampa, Florida, which controls operations in the gulf region, said only that the warplanes had attacked ``a military radar'' in southern Iraq at about 1:30 p.m. EDT and after dark in Iraq.
But U.S. officials said privately the radar was located at an airfield. ''The attack was against a radar at a combined military-civilian airfield near the city of Basra'' about 300 miles southeast of Baghdad, one of the officials said.
``The radar is used to track (U.S. and British) coalition aircraft,'' the official said.
A similar raid was carried out in the south by both U.S. and British aircraft on Tuesday against facilities used to guide Iraqi fighter jets. The Pentagon said it had also hit military air defense targets in Iraq last Saturday in retaliation for increasing attempts by Iraq's President Saddam Hussein to shoot down a western warplane.
INCREASING FIRE BETWEEN SIDES
Tuesday's raid came a day after Iraq said it shot down an unmanned U.S. ``Predator'' reconnaissance aircraft over southern Iraq. That raid hit a control tower and another target used to guide Iraqi fighters.
Iraqi fighters have made recent attempts to attack unmanned reconnaissance aircraft but have not engaged sophisticated American and British jets.
U.S. defense officials this week conceded the RQ-1B Predator spy plane was missing but could not say whether the 3.2 million weapon had been shot down or crashed due to a mechanical malfunction.
Monday's crash came after the Pentagon warned of the growing sophistication of Baghdad's air defenses. It could be the first loss of a U.S. aircraft to Iraqi fire in a decade of aerial monitoring of no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq.
Iraq's official press said on Tuesday Baghdad had dealt Washington a blow by shooting down the plane.
PHOTO CAPTION:
U.S. F-16 warplanes attacked a radar at an airport in southern Iraq August 30, 2001 in the second such raid against Baghdad's air defenses this week, U.S. defense officials said. The officials, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters that four F-16 attack jets conducted the raid with precision-guided weapons and returned safely to bases in a neighboring country. They said it was part of a continuing attempt to degrade Iraq's capability to shoot down U.S. and British warplanes patrolling two 'no-fly' zones in Iraq. (Reuters Graphic)
- Aug 30 3:58 PM ET