A US warplane fired a missile at a radar site in northern Iraq, the Pentagon said yesterday, adding that it had recorded five violations in the no-fly zone over southern Iraq.
A US F16 launched a high-speed anti-radiation missile after being illuminated by an Iraqi surface-to-air missile system, officials said. The firing took place around 8 a.m. (Irish time) near the Iraqi city of Mosul. The aircraft was undamaged and returned safely to Incirlik air base in Turkey.
The violations in the south did not lead to US retaliation, the US Central Command spokesman, Maj Joe Lamarca, said.
Nine MiG 21s, MiG 23s and MiG 25s crossed the southern no-fly zone controlled by British and US aircraft before "turning around" and heading north, Maj Lamarca said. The jets did not penetrate deeply, he added.
The US military says that more than 50 violations of the no-fly zones in north and south Iraq have taken place since Operation Desert Fox, the four-day British-US bombing campaign against Iraq last month.
The no-fly zones, imposed after the 1991 Gulf War to protect Iraq's Kurdish and Shia minorities, extend north of the 36th parallel and up to the 33rd parallel in the south, reaching the outskirts of Baghdad.
Earlier yesterday the British Ministry of Defence reported that an Iraqi Mirage F-1 had "incurred into the northern no-fly zone but was intercepted by a US F-16 and escorted out". But a Pentagon spokesman, Lieut Col Steve Campbell, said he was not aware of any incidents in the Iraqi north other than one involving the firing of a missile by a US jet.
The latest developments came as the US Defence Secretary, Mr William Cohen, vowed during an Asia tour to strike back at Iraqi challenges to US warplanes, saying President Saddam Hussein of Iraq had grown "more frantic" since the US-British air strikes last month.
At the White House yesterday the presidential spokesman, Mr Joe Lockhart, said US forces in the region would "continue to do the important work of containing the threat" posed by Baghdad.
"It's been our experience that when he [Saddam] is isolated and frustrated he tries to lash out. And he is now in a position when he has never been so isolated and frustrated," Mr Lockhart said.
At the UN last night France was due to present the other four Security Council permanent members with a "general outline" of French proposals for a new arms-monitoring system in Iraq.
A Western diplomat said that the French ideas would be explained for the first time to UN envoys of Britain, China, Russia and the US at a closed-door meeting.
The French ambassador to the UN, Mr Alain Dejammet, met privately with the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, and was believed to have given details of the French initiative to him.
The French proposals notably call for the lifting of the oil embargo, which is linked to Iraqi disarmament. They also call for a new monitoring system to ensure that President Saddam does not rebuild his weapons of mass destruction.
Iraqi newspapers yesterday stepped up a campaign against Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, accusing them of conspiring with the US and Britain to threaten Iraq. Commentators in some Gulf newspapers said Iraq's recent verbal attacks on its neighbours were similar to those on the eve of its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.