Iraq reports air attacks in
northern zone
Baghdad cites deaths from jet debris
By Reuters, 04/22/99
AGHDAD - Iraq said Western
warplanes attacked Iraqi civilian and
military sites in the north of the country
yesterday.
A military spokesman said Iraqi air
defenses engaged the attacking planes and
forced them to flee. There was no mention
of casualties or damage.
''Crows of evil and aggression returned to
violate our national airspace targeting the
service establishments and our weapon
sites,'' the spokesman said in a statement
carried by the official Iraqi News Agency.
''Our ground resistance units intercepted
them and forced them to flee,'' the
spokesman added.
''At 12:50 p.m on April 21, 10 hostile
formations of the kind F-14s, F15s, F-16s,
violated our airspace coming from Turkish
skies,'' the spokesman said.
He said the planes supported by an early
warning, command and control plane flew
over the northern regions of Amadiya,
Zakho, Duhok, Arbil, Aqra, Mosul and
Talafar.
The spokesman said Western planes had
also flown over southern Iraq and were
also ''challenged'' by Iraqi ground
batteries.
''At 13:45 p.m, 11 hostile formations
violated our airspace coming from Kuwaiti
and Saudi skies. They implemented 18
sorties from Saudi and six sorties from
Kuwaiti skies,'' the spokesman said.
He said the planes left Iraqi airspace for
their bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait at
3:40 p.m.
Earlier, a spokesman at an airbase in
southern Turkey said US warplanes
bombed Iraqi air defenses in the northern
no-fly zone yesterday after being tracked
by radar.
He said all the aircraft had left the no-fly
zone safely.
Iraq also said a fuel tank discarded by a
Western warplane had killed civilians
when it hit the ground.
INA quoted a letter from Iraq's Foreign
Minister Mohammed Saeed Sahaf to the
Arab League as saying the tank had been
dropped on an agricultural area in the
Afak district of southern Iraq.
This story ran on page A26 of the Boston Globe on
04/22/99.
© Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.
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