A total of four Iraqis were killed and 10 others wounded when US and British war planes bombed southern Iraq on Thursday, an Iraqi military spokesman said.
The unidentified spokesman told the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) that at 11:05 (0805 GMT), U.S. and British planes, crossing into Iraq from their bases in Kuwait, carried out 44 armed sorties over the southern provinces of Misan, Thi-Qar and Basra.
The hostile planes bombed "civil and service" installations in Misan Province, causing civilian casualties, the spokesman said.
Iraqi air defense artillery opened fire at the hostile planes and forced them to flee away, the spokesman added.
The U.S. has confirmed Thursday's air strikes, saying the coalition planes bombed a military compound in southern Iraq.
This was the second airstrike by the U.S. and Britain against Iraq this week. Iraq said the Western planes bombed its northern part on Wednesday and wounded one civilian.
Misan Province has been included inside the so-called southern no-fly zone, along with a similar one in northern Iraq.
U.S. and British planes have been patrolling the two no-fly zones since the 1991 Gulf War with the claimed aim of protecting the Kurds in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south from the persecution of the Iraqi government.
Iraq does not recognize the air exclusion zones and has regularly opened fire at the Western planes enforcing the two no-fly zones.
U.S. President George W. Bush has branded Iraq as part of an "axis of evil" and strongly warned that Iraq may become the next target of the U.S.-led war on terrorism.
(Xinhua News Agency June 21, 2002)
