Strike on Iraq's southern no-fly zone

MACDILL AFB, Florida (CNN) -- Coalition aircraft struck an anti-artillery site in Iraq's southern "no-fly zone" early Saturday, the U.S. Central Command here announced.

A statement from the Central Command said the strike, which was performed at 3:15 a.m. EDT with precision-guided weapons, was in response to "hostile acts against coalition aircraft."

Damage assessment is ongoing, the statement said.

COUNTRY PROFILE At a glance: Iraq     IN DEPTH The Unfinished War     ALSO Iraqi source plays down delay in signing oil plan

A spokesman for Iraqi Air Defense Command said Iraq's missile force and anti-aircraft artillery drove the planes out of the disputed airspace and back to their bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, the Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported.

All coalition aircraft returned safely to their base aboard the USS Constellation in the Arabian Gulf, said Lt. Col. Rick Thomas of the U.S. Central Command.

The last strike by coalition forces in the southern no-fly zone was also against an Iraqi anti-aircraft artillery site on June 26.

U.S. and British aircraft monitor the northern and southern no-fly zones, which were put in place following the 1991 Persian Gulf War as part of an effort to prevent the Iraqi government of President Saddam Hussein from persecuting the minority Shiite Muslims in the south and the Kurdish population in northern Iraq.

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 Pentagon said last month.