British and US planes bomb Iraqi facility
British and US warplanes bombed an Iraqi defence facility in the southern no-fly zone last night for the fifth time in a week.
Coalition aircraft used precision-guided weapons to strike a military radar system near Al Kut, 150 miles southeast of Baghdad, said US Central Command.
Officials said it was a response to Iraqi attacks on pilots patrolling the zone.
US 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 in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south.
Iraq considers the patrols a violation of its sovereignty and frequently shoots at them with surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery. In retaliation, coalition pilots try to bomb Iraqi air defence systems.
Pentagon officials said the strike followed one last Friday, one on Sunday and two on Tuesday, bringing the number of strikes this year in the northern zone to 10 and in the southern zone to 23.
