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Coalition planes fired upon in Iraqi no-fly zone
STUTTGART, Germany (CNN) -- Iraqi forces fired anti-aircraft artillery Sunday at coalition aircraft operating in the northern no-fly zone, an act the White House and Pentagon have said is a violation of the latest U.N. Security Council resolution on Iraq. It is the second such incident in the skies above Iraq since Wednesday, when the Baghdad government accepted Security Council-mandated weapons inspections. The U.S. European Command, whose mission includes maintaining ready forces to conduct military operations in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, said Sunday that "Iraqi forces threatened Operation Northern Watch aircraft." The command said the anti-aircraft fire came from sites northeast of Mosul as coalition aircraft conducted what it called "routine enforcement" of the northern no-fly zone. According to the command's statement, coalition aircraft responded to the fire by dropping precision-guided munitions on elements of the Iraqi integrated air defense system. Aall coalition aircraft departed the area safely, said the statement, which offered no damage assessment. The state-run Iraqi News Agency reported that "planes coming from Turkey on Sunday attacked civilian and service facilities in the province of Nineveh." The province is about 369 kilometers (229 miles) north of Baghdad. The news agency also reported that planes came from Kuwait, and were "countered by Iraqi missile force and ground air defenses." Coalition aircraft did not engage Iraqi targets on Saturday, said Maj. Pete Mitchell, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command. It is common for coalition planes to be fired on in the southern no-fly zone, but Mitchell said he was not sure planes were fired on Saturday. Neither the White House nor the Pentagon had any immediate comment. A similar incident occurred Friday when coalition aircraft patrolling the southern no-fly zone in Iraq struck an air defense communications facility after the planes came under heavy fire. Last week, the Pentagon acknowledged that Iraq has slightly increased the range of its SA2 surface-to-air missiles by several miles. Coalition aircraft operating in the no-fly zones have taken the upgrade into account, the Pentagon said. Section 8 of the recently passed U.N. Resolution 1441 states, "Iraq shall not take or threaten hostile acts directed against any representative or personnel of the United Nations ... any member state taking action to uphold any council resolution." After Friday's anti-aircraft fire from Iraq, Pentagon officials said the hostile action by the Baghdad regime was a breach of the resolution. However, military officials said that it is ultimately up to the United Nations to decide if the action was a "material breach." At the White House, a Bush administration official said it considered Friday's incident "a violation of the resolution." U.S. and British aircraft have enforced no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq since the end of the Persian Gulf War in 1991 to protect Kurds in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south from possible attacks by the Iraqi government. Beginning in December 1998, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein began challenging the coalition enforcement by firing surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery and targeting them with radar.
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