U.S. warplanes bombed an Iraqi air defense battery Thursday after spotting the launch of an anti-aircraft missile, the Pentagon said.

The missile site near the northern city of Mosul was destroyed, U.S. officials said. Iraq reported the incident, but did not mention the missile launch.At the Pentagon, Marine Lt. Col. Charles Boyd said U.S. aircraft on patrol over northern Iraq spotted an SA-3 missile being launched at them from the missile site. Two F-16s dropped cluster bombs, and two F-15s that were not on the patrol attacked it with four laser-guided bombs, Boyd said.

"The site appears to have been destroyed," Boyd said. "The pilots were reacting to a perceived threat upon visibly sighting the SA-3 missile launch."

He said the American planes were not hit.

A U.S.-led air force based in southern Turkey since the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War has been monitoring Baghdad's treatment of its Kurdish population in northern Iraq. The warplanes fly daily reconnaissance flights over a no-fly zone in northern Iraq carved out to protect the Kurds.

A report from the state-run Iraqi news agency, monitored in Nicosia, said Iraqi anti-aircraft guns opened fire after the bombing and later prevented the U.S. planes from attacking another defense battery. According to the report, a soldier and a civilian were wounded in the attack on Mosul.

The last confirmed attack by U.S. planes on an Iraqi installation was on July 25, when a U.S. F-4G fired HARM missile at an Iraqi anti-aircraft missile site after the plane was tracked by the battery's radar.

The Iraqi News Agency quoted an Iraqi official as saying U.S. planes dropped parachute flares Thursday near an artillery battery 13 miles west of Mosul around 9 a.m. midnight MDT).

The report claimed that the aircraft returned about 15 minutes later and dropped cluster bombs near civilian and military personnel trying to put out fires started by the flares. It said one Iraqi was wounded and two vehicles were damaged.

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INA said the battery opened fire on the aircraft but did not say whether any were hit.

The U.S. warplanes reportedly attempted to approach another defense battery at 9:40 a.m. and again 30 minutes later but were driven off by anti-aircraft fire, INA said.

It said the planes then dropped cluster bombs on a roadway, injuring a civilian.

There was no immediate comment from the Pentagon on this claim.

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