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Coalition planes hit sites southeast of Baghdad
(CNN) -- Coalition aircraft struck Iraqi facilities southeast of Baghdad on Sunday as Iraq's foreign minister sent a letter to Secretary-General Kofi Annan demanding the United Nations look at incursions into Iraqi airspace. Aircraft attacked a mobile radar site and cable repeater sites, according to U.S. Central Command, which said the attacks were in "response to Iraqi acts against coalition aircraft." The sites are near An Nasiriya, about 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, and Basra, about 245 miles southeast of the capital. It was the second strike in two days -- aircraft struck what Central Command said were three air defense communication facilities Saturday. The Iraqi News Agency, however, said the sites were part of the nation's civilian infrastructure, and the attack prompted Foreign Minister Naji Sabri to send a letter to the United Nations. Sabri said the attacks and no-fly zone patrol flights were violations of Iraqi airspace -- 1,141 between November 9 and December 6, he said -- and demanded that the United Nations call a halt to the flights. Without a specific U.N. resolution, U.S. and British aircraft have enforced no-fly zones -- which Iraq does not recognize -- over 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. Iraqi officials insist that the zones violate the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity. 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, Central Command said.
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