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Iraq Reports New Western Air Patrols After Raids
Iraq's President Saddam Hussein and his top aides discussed plans for military retaliation in the event of a repeat of the attack, the first major raid against Iraq ordered by new US President George W. Bush.
The official Iraqi News Agency (INA) said warplanes returned to Iraq on Saturday morning. This appeared to be the first resumption since the raids of Western patrols over a no-fly zone in southern Iraq.
"At 9:53 local time (0653 GMT) on February 17, 2001, enemy warplanes violated our space coming from Kuwait and flew over the provinces of Basra, Dhiqar and Meisan," the Iraqi News Agency (INA) quoted a military spokesman as saying.
A British Defence Ministry spokesman in London could not immediately confirm the report.
Russia and China led a chorus of international concern over Friday's raids, seen as threatening Middle East stability. Criticism also came from within the NATO Western alliance.
France, a member of the Gulf War coalition that ended Iraq's 1990-91 occupation of Kuwait, said it wanted an explanation for the first Western air strike near Baghdad in over two years, adding such assaults hindered efforts to solve the Iraq problem.
Turkey, from which U.S-led warplanes take off to patrol a no-fly zone over northern Iraq, rebuked Washington for failing to inform it before the assault was launched. It said it hoped the raids would not be repeated.
A Spanish foreign affairs spokesman said that at no stage had Spain and other European allies been informed of the raid.
(www.chinadaily.com.cn)
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