Britian and the US have all but fired the first shots of a second Gulf war by dramatically extending the range of targets in the "no-fly zones" over Iraq to soften up the country for an allied ground invasion.
Targets hit in recent days include the Ababil-100, a Soviet-designed surface-to-air missile system adapted to hit targets on the ground, and the Astros 2 ground rocket launcher with a range of up to 90km. These would be used to defend Iraq in the event of an invasion or to attack allied troops stationed in Kuwait.
Britain and the US insist publicly that the rules for enforcing the no-fly zones over the north and south of Iraq have not changed -- that pilots only open fire if they are targeted. But privately defense officials admit that there has been an aggressive upping of the ante in recent weeks to weaken Iraqi defenses ahead of a ground invasion.
Analysts confirm there has been an intensification of what is known as "the undeclared war."
The allied action will prompt allegations that Britain and the US have unilaterally changed the rules of the no-fly zones. These zones were established after the last Gulf war to protect Shias in the south and Kurds in the north. They are not legally sanctioned by the UN.
John Warden, a retired US air force colonel who was an architect of the 1991 Gulf War air campaign, gave a taste of the change in tactics when he said: "We have added a new category of targets, and those were some of the Iraqi multiple rocket launchers and some of their relatively short range surface-to-surface missiles."
Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the US Lexington Institute, told Reuters: "The US military is taking advantage of the no-fly zones to prepare the battle space for war. There's been a sporadic war occurring in the air over Iraq for a dozen years now.
This merely ratchets up the intensity."
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