WASHINGTON -- American warplanes patrolling the "no-fly" zone over northern Iraq attacked several surface-to-air missile installations Wednesday after being targeted by Iraqi radar, U.S. officials said. Iraqis fired at least one missile but missed the U.S. planes, the Pentagon said.
The U.S. Air Force F-15 and F-16 attack planes encountered Iraqi radar at five or more air-defense sites at about the same time. They fired high-speed anti-radiation missiles and AGM-130 precision guided munitions in response, and early indications were that two AGM-130s scored direct hits, U.S. officials said.The incidents underscored an increasingly aggressive Iraqi challenge to the "no-fly" zones enforced by American and British planes in northern and southern Iraq. President Saddam Hussein has nearly doubled the number of surface-to-air missile batteries in the restricted flight zones and has been using them with increasing frequency to threaten allied pilots, U.S. officials said Tuesday.
Details of Wednesday's incident were sketchy, but officials in Washington and at U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany, said the U.S. planes returned safely to their base in Turkey. They are under European Command control.
The official Iraqi News Agency carried a government report that one of the U.S. planes was hit by a missile. "The enemy formations dropped four missiles on civilian poositions, including one house," the report asserted.
The incidents happened at about 3 a.m. EST.
At the Pentagon, spokesman Army Col. Richard Bridges said there also were two Iraqi incursions into the no-fly zone over southern Iraq Wednesday. He said no U.S. planes were in the area at the time.
At the White House, spokesman David Leavy said Iraq's provocations would not go unanswered.
"As the president has made clear, we will take appropriate actions to enforce the no-fly zones and to protect the safety of our air crews," Leavy said. "Today's incident is consistent with both."
The increased threat, combined with a rash of Iraqi violations of the no-fly zones in southern and northern Iraq, has created a "very highly charged environment" for allied pilots wary of being drawn into a trap, Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Mike Doubleday said Tuesday.
Doubleday said Iraq's challenges to the no-fly zones fit a pattern of actions by Saddam that seem designed to rid Iraq of the tough international constraints imposed on it after the 1991 gulf war in which Iraq's army was ousted from Kuwait.
Doubleday declined to say U.S. pilots have been instructed to be more aggressive in response to Iraq's recent provocations. Over the northern no-fly zone on Tuesday, an American F-16 warplane fired a missile at an Iraqi early-warning radar that Doubleday said was linked to at least one surface-to-air missile installation near the city of Mosul.
Doubleday said he had no information on whether the U.S. missile struck its target. Another official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said some of the recent U.S. missile firings on Iraqi surface-to-air missile sites had missed, although no details were available.
"Certainly when our pilots and air crews feel threatened by the activities of the Iraqis in the no-fly zone, we take action to protect pilots and air crews," Doubleday said. "And this was exactly what happened in this case."
The northern no-fly zone was set up in 1991 north of the 36th parallel to keep Iraq from attacking minority Kurds. The southern zone, established in 1992, is below the 33rd parallel and is meant to protect the rebellious Shiite Muslims and to prevent Iraqi attacks on Kuwait or Saudi Arabia.
Since the U.S. and British air campaign against Iraq in mid-December, Saddam has begun challenging the no-fly zones.