Warplanes from a US-British coalition struck missile systems in northern and southern Iraq this afternoon in an intensifying campaign against threats to US and British forces massing for a possible invasion of Iraq, the US military said.
Warplanes using precision guided weapons targeted a surface-to-air missile site near Basra in the south not long after fighter aircraft operating from Turkey struck three surface-to-surface missile systems near the northern town of Mosul, the military said.
They were the latest in an almost daily series of air strikes that have had the effect of preparing the battlefield for a threatened US-led invasion by stripping away Iraqi air defenses and offensive ground-to-ground missile systems.
The strike in the north - the first in more than three weeks by US and British aircraft operating from Turkey - came after Washington and Ankara reached a tentative agreement that would allow US ground forces to stage an offensive into northern Iraq from Turkey.
The US European Command said it was carried out by aircraft patrolling a no-fly zone over northern Iraq.
AFP