No-fly patrol targets Iraq complex

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Coalition aircraft used precision-guided weapons to strike an air defence communications facility in the Iraqi southern no-fly zone on Sunday.

U.S. Central Command said the strike occurred at 3:30 a.m, ET, near Tallil, approximately 160 miles southeast of Baghdad. Damage to the facility is still being assessed.

U.S. and British air forces have patrolled no-fly zones over southern and northern Iraq since the end of the Gulf War in 1991 but they are not covered by any U.N. resolution.

The U.S. and UK say the patrols are to protect Iraq's Kurdish population in north and Shiite population in the south.

Allied policy is to strike in self-defence if Iraqi air defence facilities target or fire at allied aircraft.

There have been more than 140 separate incidents of Iraqi surface-to-air missile and anti-aircraft artillery fire directed against coalition aircraft this year, according to Central Command.

The last allied strike in the southern no-fly zone was against a military command and control facility near Al Amarah on September 9, 2002.