Iraqi anti-aircraft forces shot down a US spy plane today in the region of the southern port city of Basra, the offical Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported.
In Washington, a Pentagon duty officer said he had heard "nothing at all" about such a report.
"Iraqi anti-aircraft fire in the region of Basra on Monday brought down an American spy plane flying out of Kuwait," a military spokesman told INA.
The report did not say what type of aircraft had been hit but said it carried "high-tech intelligence gathering equipment that the United States used in its aggression against Yugoslavia".
The military spokesman said: "It was operating in southern Iraq to gather information on our strategic sites and our anti-aircraft defences".
Iraq repeatedly alleges it has either hit or brought down British and US planes, but such claims have been denied by Washington or London.
There are almost daily encounters between Iraq and US and British planes patrolling northern and southern exclusion zones aimed at enforcing the military restrictions imposed on the regime after the 1991 Gulf War.
AFP