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2 Killed, 19 Injured in US, British Air Strikes: Iraq
Two Iraqis were killed and 19 others injured when the US and British warplanes bombed the southern part of Iraq Saturday afternoon, a military spokesman said.
In a statement carried by the official Iraqi News Agency (INA), the spokesman said that at the local time 15:25 (1125 GMT), 17 formations of US and British planes made 38 armed sorties over the southern provinces of Basra, Misan, Thi-Qar, Qadissiyah, Wasit, Najaf and Muthana.
The enemy planes were challenged by the Iraqi air defense artillery and were forced to flee back to their bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, the spokesman said.
The air strikes followed Friday's air raids which killed one and injured 20 others.
Iraq says the bombings have killed 300 innocent people, injured 1,000 others and inflicted huge property damages.
The United States and Britain have been patrolling the two no- fly zones in the north and south of Iraq to protect Kurds in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south from what they call is the persecution of the Iraqi government.
The zones have been the site of almost daily skirmishes since the allies's air war on Iraq in December 1998.
Baghdad does not recognize the zones, which were established after the 1991 Gulf War but are not directly covered by a United Nations resolution.
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