U.S., British planes strike Iraqi air defenses

By Chris Plante
CNN National Security Producer

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. and British warplanes bombed an Iraqi anti-aircraft artillery site in southern Iraq Monday in response to "hostile acts against coalition aircraft monitoring the southern no-fly zone," the Pentagon said.

The nighttime air strikes mark the first attack by Western warplanes in southern Iraq since June 14, according to a statement from the U.S. Central Command.

There have been "more than 900 separate incidents of Iraqi surface-to-air missile and anti-aircraft artillery fire directed at coalition aircraft since December 1998, including more than 275 in this calendar year," the statement said.

The strikes took place at about 3:15 p.m. EDT, according to the Central Command.

The Iraqi government last week accused the U.S. of bombing civilians at a soccer field in northern Iraq, killing more than 20 people.

The United States denied bombing the soccer field or even dropping any bombs on that day. U.S. sources told CNN that they believed that the casualties inflicted in the incident were caused by the malfunction of an Iraqi surface-to-air missile, which had been fired at U.S. planes patrolling the northern no-fly zone.

The no-fly zones were put in place following the 1991 Persian Gulf War as part of an effort to prevent the Baghdad government of President Saddam Hussein from persecuting the minority Shiite Muslims in the south and the Kurdish population in northern Iraq.