US warplanes today attacked an air defense target in southern Iraq in response to continuing Iraqi threats against American and British jets patrolling a no-fly zone there, the US Defense Department said.
The announcement, which came as Baghdad rejected a call from President Bush to allow UN arms inspectors back into Iraq, said only that an air defense command and control system had been struck.
The US military's Central Command, based in Tampa, Florida, said damage assessment was incomplete and that all aircraft had returned safely to their bases near Iraq.
It was the first such attack by US or British aircraft in the southern zone since October 13th.
Western jets have conducted dozens of attacks against Iraqi targets in no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq in the past decade. The zones, which are not recognized by Baghdad, were set up after the 1991 Gulf War to protect Kurds in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south from attack by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's military.
This action was taken to reduce the threat to the coalition aircraft patrolling the southern no-fly zone and has no connection with 'Operation Enduring Freedom' in which U.S. forces are fighting against the Taliban and al Qaeda guerrillas in Afghanistan, the Central Command said.
Today's attack, which occurred at about 3.15 a.m. Washington time (08.15 Irish time), came a day after Mr Bush urged Mr Hussein to let UN weapons inspectors back into his country to determine whether he was building weapons of mass destruction.
In Baghdad, Iraq today rejected that call.
"Anyone who thinks Iraq can accept an arrogant and unilateral will of this party or that, is mistaken," an Iraqi government spokesman said in a statement carried by the official Iraqi News Agency.
After having expelled the weapons inspectors in December 1998, Iraq rejected a UN resolution adopted in December 1999 calling for the suspension of UN sanctions if it allowed the inspectors to return.
"As for Mr Hussein, he needs to let inspectors back into his country to show us that he is not developing weapons of mass destruction," Mr Bush told reporters yesterday amid speculation that Iraq could be the next target in the US-led war on terrorism.
Asked what would happen if Mr Hussein refused, Bush replied: "He'll find out".