Iraq said last night it had confronted aircraft which attacked its air defences and a food centre in the south of the country and that Saudi pilots were involved. "At 11.37 a.m. local time on Tuesday, 20 hostile formations violated our national air space in the south coming from Kuwaiti and Saudi skies. They were backed by early-warning planes," an Iraqi military spokesman said in a statement in Baghdad.
"It has been confirmed to us that Saudi pilots have taken part in these formations," he added.
The Pentagon said that US aircraft bombed and apparently destroyed a newly established anti-ship missile site in southern Iraq which could have threatened shipping in the oil-rich Gulf. Earlier yesterday, US defence officials said that in the latest of a month-long series of incidents involving US and Iraqi forces, four jets from the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson in the Gulf attacked the Russian-made CSSC-3 missile battery.
Other US jets also made at least four bombing strikes against antiaircraft missile and radar sites in a no fly zone in northern Iraq yesterday, the Defence Department said. "Initial indications are that we hit what we aimed at," Col Richard Bridges, a Pentagon spokesman, said of the attack against the anti-ship missile battery on the Iraqi coast near the entrance to the Gulf.
Other defence officials said the missiles, with a range of 100 km, were apparently moved within the past week to the coast just south-east of Basra and could have posed a threat to either US warships or commercial shipping in the waterway.
"We have no concrete indication of what they might be used for, but there is always the chance that [Iraqi President] Saddam [Hussein] could lash out in frustration with such weapons," said one Pentagon official.
Iraq vowed yesterday it would not back down on its decision to resist the no-fly zones, which it has declared illegal, and would prevent UN weapons inspectors from returning to the country.
Meanwhile yesterday, Turkey's defence minister said Ankara was discussing with the US changes in the rules of military engagement for warplanes patrolling a no-fly zone over northern Iraq. Mr Hik met Sami Turk also said Turkey was ready to react to any Iraqi at tempt to launch a Scud missile at tack against the joint Turkish-US Incirlik airfield used as a base for the patrols.
Four British warplanes attacked an Iraqi radar site in the south of the country, the Ministry of Defence said in London. The raid, carried out by four RAF Tornados, came as part of a joint operation with US planes against violations of the no-fly zones in both northern and southern Iraq, the ministry said.
Sixteen British ex-servicemen who served in the 1991 Gulf War have tested positive for depleted uranium contamination, a veterans' group has claimed. The tests were carried out in Canada on samples sent by members of the National Gulf Veterans and Families Association.