Iraqi forces fired around 50 missiles at US troops parachuting into the Kurdish-held north of the country, a military spokesman in Baghdad said this afternoon.
"We fired 44 Tariq missiles and seven Raad missiles at the American forces as they parachuted into Sulaymaniya," Hazim al-Rawi told journalists here, without saying if the missiles had caused casualties.
As many as 1,000 US airborne troops parachuted into Kurdish northern Iraq on yesterday, Pentagon officials said, opening a new front in the war in Iraq.
The troops from the US Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade parachuted into an airfield some 75 kilometres northeast of Arbil, the main city in the Kurdish enclave.
US transport planes landed in the eastern part of Kurdish-held northern Iraq early this morning, witnesses said, with US troops seen near frontlines with the Iraqi oil city of Kirkuk.
Meanwhile, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein met with his ruling Baath party, this afternoon. The party vowed to "inflict maximum material and human damage among enemy ranks," state television has reported. AFP