In an action US officials consider a violation of a UN Security Council resolution, Iraq fired surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft guns at American and British warplanes patrolling a "no-fly" zone.
Coalition warplanes bombed an Iraqi air defense site in retaliation for Friday's firing, a Pentagon statement said.
It was the first coalition strike on Iraq since President Saddam Hussein's government accepted the Security Council resolution Wednesday that demanded he disarm and allow inspectors to search for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Under the resolution, a material breach must be reported to the Security Council for new debate and could be used as possible justification for US-led military action to remove Saddam's government.
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the government considers the firing a material breach, but could not say whether or when US officials would raise the issue with the UN.
State Department spokesman Frederick Jones said the US had the option of reporting the Iraqi firing to the Security Council but had not decided whether to do so.
In New York, meanwhile, chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix prepared to set off for Baghdad with a warning to Saddam that the Security Council won't tolerate "cat and mouse" games.
Blix and other inspectors are scheduled to arrive in Iraq on Monday after a four-year absence, and he said actual inspections were expected to begin Nov. 27.
Saddam's government told Iraqis on Friday they must welcome the inspection team.
The George W. Bush administration says it will go to war if Saddam does not comply with the new UN resolution to cooperate in declaring and dismantling Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
Saddam accepted the UN resolution on Wednesday but insists Iraq has no chemical, biological and nuclear arms.
"Iraq's acceptance of the resolution is an attempt to save our people from any harm," the state-run Al-Iraq newspaper said Friday. "This is the most important thing."
President George W. Bush and other US officials have said they believe Iraq's firing on coalition planes patrolling the northern and southern no-fly zones would violate the latest UN resolution.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other Pentagon officials, however, have been vague about whether Iraqi hostile actions in the zones would be considered a trigger for a wider US-led attack.
Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel David Lapan said Iraq fired surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery at coalition planes. The shots came from Iraqi positions near the southern city of An Najaf, said Commander Dan Gage, a spokesman for the US Central Command.
Coalition planes used precision-guided weapons to attack an air defense communications facility near An Najaf about 135km southeast of Baghdad, a Pentagon statement said.
The latest UN Security Council resolution, passed 15-0 on Nov. 8, prohibits Iraq from taking or threatening any hostile action against countries "taking action to uphold any council resolution." The US and Britain say they established the no-fly zones to enforce Security Council resolutions calling on Saddam to end attacks on Kurds in northern Iraq and Shiite Muslims in the south.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat