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| Four Iraqis Killed In US Bombing |
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| Safia |
| 07/01/02 at 18:11:35 |
| Four Iraqis killed, 10 wounded in new U.S. bombing 2002-06-21 18:51:56 Riam Dalati for Middle East News Online 21 June 2002 U.S. and British warplanes on patrol in the southern no- fly zone in Iraq attacked civilian targets in southern Iraq on Thursday, killing four civilians and wounding 10 others according to Iraqi officials. At 0930 GMT US coalition military air strikes targeted an Iraqi command and control center that they said was posing a threat to coalition planes patrolling the "no fly" zone south of Iraq, the US central command reported. "The facility was located about 265 kilometers southeast of Baghdad at Al Amara, a location that was also struck on 14 June by US planes. Warplanes used precision-guided weapons to strike facilities of a military command and control centre…" said Lieutenant Colonel Martin Compton, a spokesman for the Central Command. In Baghdad an Iraqi military spokesman claimed the loss of four civilian lives and the injury of 10 others. "The United States and Britain added another ugly crime to their black record when their aircraft attacked our civilian and services installations in Missan province, 366 kilometers south of Baghdad, killing four citizens and wounding 10…Our anti-aircraft artillery and surface to air missiles forced the warplanes to flee in the direction of their bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait." He said. According to U.S military sources the facility they hit was an Iraqi command and control center that was helping to direct anti-aircraft artillery to fire at coalition forces trying to patrol the "no fly" zone in southern Iraq. It was in 1992 that President George Bush senior announced the creation of a "no fly" area south of the 32nd Parallel, in a supposed bid to "break Baghdad's repression over the Shiite Muslim-dominated region and to signal to Iraqi dissidents that the West continues to seek the fall of Saddam Hussein." According to Iraqi figures, the allied air raids have killed some 400 Iraqis and wounded more than 1,000 others since December 1998 when the U.S. and Britain launched a massive air campaign against Iraq accusing it of non-cooperation with U.N. weapons inspectors. |
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