Saturday October 13, 10:38 PM

Iraq says US and British jets bomb southern Iraq

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq said U.S. and British planes have attacked targets in the south of the country on Saturday, but no casualties were reported.

"At 4 p.m. (2 p.m. British time) U.S. and British warplanes carried out 11 sorties coming from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and flew over the provinces of Basra, Dhiqar, Muthanna and Meisan," an Iraqi military spokesman said in a statement carried by the Iraqi News Agency.

He said the planes attacked civilian installations in Dhiqar (Nasiriya) province, but were forced to return to their bases by Iraqi air-defence fire.

The spokesman said other Western planes based in Turkey flew over northern Iraqi provinces, but no incident was reported.

There was no immediate word from the United States or Britain. Their jets patrol no-fly zones set up after the expulsion of Iraqi troops from Kuwait in 1991 to protect a Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq and Shi'ite Muslims in the south from attack by Iraqi forces.

Iraq said on Wednesday its air defences had shot down a third American unmanned plane over the southern fly zone. The U.S. military acknowledged the RQ-1B drone was missing.

Incidents involving U.S. and British planes have become common since 1998 when Iraq, which does not recognise the no-fly zones, said it would begin to "challenge" the patrols with its anti-aircraft installations.

U.S. and British military officials say Western planes fire at Iraqi anti-aircraft units when fired at or when pilots detect Iraqi radar locked onto their aircraft.

-- Anonymous, October 13, 2001