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US and British warplanes bombeda radar site in southern Iraq on Friday after Iraq fired surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery at coalition planes patrolling a no-fly zone, the Pentagon said.
"Coalition warplanes used precision-guided weapons to attack anair defense communication facility near An Najaf, about 85 miles (136 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad," the Pentagon said in a statement.
It is the first US and British air strike on Iraq since the Iraqi government accepted a new tough UN Security Council resolution Wednesday to disarm and allow weapons inspectors to return.
US and British planes have been patrolling the two no-fly zonessince the 1991 Gulf War with a claimed aim of protecting the Kurdsin the north and the Shiite Muslims in the south from the persecution by the Iraqi government.
Iraq does not recognize the air exclusion zones and has regularly opened fire at the Western planes enforcing the two no-fly zones.
(Xinhua News Agency November 16, 2002)
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