Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, August 26, 2002
Iraq Says 8 Killed, 9 Injured in US-British Raids
Eight Iraqi civilians were killed and nine others injured when US and British warplanes bombed southern Iraq on Sunday, an Iraqi military spokesman said.
Eight Iraqi civilians were killed and nine others injured when US and British warplanes bombed southern Iraq on Sunday, an Iraqi military spokesman said.
At 8:55 a.m. local time (0455 GMT), US and British planes bombed civilian and service facilities in the southern province of Basrah, killing eight Iraqis and wounding nine more, the spokesman told the official Iraqi News Agency (INA).
Iraq's air defenses fired at the planes and forced them back to bases in Kuwait, the spokesman added.
Basrah is within the so-called southern no-fly zone, parallel to another one in northern Iraq.
US and British planes have been patrolling the two no-fly zones since the 1991 Gulf War with the claimed aim of protecting the Kurds in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south from the persecution of the Iraqi government.
Iraq does not recognize the air exclusion zones and has regularly opened fire at the Western planes enforcing the two no-fly zones.
Iraq said more than 1,400 Iraqis have been killed by the US and British bombings since the end of the Gulf War and more than 1,400 others have been injured.