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Coalition forces target Iraqi communications facilities
(CNN) -- U.S.-led coalition aircraft hit Iraqi air defense communication facilities Saturday southeast of Baghdad, Iraq, responding to what the U.S. military termed "hostile threats and acts" against patrols over the southern no-fly zone. Operation Southern Watch planes struck three facilities, the U.S. Central Command said, near Al Kut, about 100 miles southeast of Iraqi capital; Qal'at Sukkar, about 170 miles southeast of the city; and Al Amarah, about 165 miles east southeast of the city. The attacks took place at about 1 a.m. ET, and all the coalition planes returned from the region safely, U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Pete Mitchell said. There was no immediate response from Iraq. Without a United Nations resolution, U.S. and British aircraft have enforced "no-fly" zones -- which Iraq does not recognize -- in northern and southern Iraq since the end of the Gulf War in 1991 to protect Kurds in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south from possible attacks by the Iraqi government. Iraqi officials insist that the zones violate the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and they refuse to recognize them. Since December 1998, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has challenged the enforcement by firing at coalition aircraft with surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery and by targeting them with radar, the command said. As of last September, the Pentagon had counted more than 130 incidents of Iraqi surface-to-air missile and anti-aircraft artillery fire directed against coalition aircraft this year.
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