Iraqi FM Claims US Airplane Shot down over Baghdad

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, March 23, 2003

Iraqi FM Claims US Airplane Shot down over Baghdad

Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri claimed his country's troops had shot down an unspecified US airplane over a Baghdad suburb, as he arrived in the Syrian capital early Sunday.

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Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri claimed his country's troops had shot down an unspecified US airplane over a Baghdad suburb, as he arrived in the Syrian capital early Sunday.

"Our fighters shot down a plane over the area of Abu Gharieb (in Baghdad), and of course there is a pilot or more in it, but I will not get into that in front of you," said Sabri, the first Iraqi official to leave Iraq since the start of the US-led attack on Thursday.

But a Pentagon spokesman denied any US aircraft had been shot down over Baghdad. Lieutenant Colonel David Lapan said he had no "information that this is accurate ... all our aircraft are accounted for."

Sabri arrived in the Syrian capital by road and was scheduled to fly later to Cairo to attend an Arab League meeting on the war.

Responding to reporters' questions about the whereabouts of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, he said "there are 26 million Saddams in Iraq."

The United States launched the war in the early hours of Thursday with a missile strike on what US officials described as "leadership targets" in and around Baghdad in a bid to "decapitate" the regime, sparking speculation over the fate of the strongman.

Sabri also called on Arab governments to "confront" the US-led war ahead of the Arab League meeting.

"We hope that our Arab brethren will defend themselves and stand against the Zionist-American-British aggression which is targeted at all Arab countries to turn them into weak cantons ruled by (Israeli Prime Minister) Sharon."

Asked whether he will ask the Arab League to provide Iraq with aid after the halt of the United Nations food-for-oil program on Monday, he said that "Iraq does not need help and has enough food, provisions and weapons to fight for another 13 years."

Syria's ruling coalition on Saturday called on the United States and its allies to end what it dubbed the "barbarous aggression" being waged on neighbouring Iraq. Syrian authorities had said Friday they plan to allow Iraqi refugees to cross their border.

Syria's and Iraq's ruling Baath parties have long been bitter rivals, but there has been a warming of relations in the last two years. In the early 1980s, when Iraq and Iran went to war, Syria sided with Tehran and closed its border with Iraq.

During the 1991 Gulf War, Syrian troops and tanks were also part of the US-led coalition that drove Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

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