Britain and the United States said coalition planes attacked Iraqi radar after aircraft had come under threat. A British Defense Ministry spokesman declined to say whether British or U.S. aircraft were involved -- or both.

"At 0855 a.m. local time (12:55 a.m. EDT) today U.S. and British planes...flew 35 sorties using air bases in Kuwait," the Iraqi military spokesman said in a statement carried by the official Iraqi News Agency (INA).

"The enemy attacked civilian and service installations in Basra province, killing eight people and wounding nine others," the spokesman said.

Basra is 343 miles south of Baghdad.

Iraq's ground air-defenses fired at the planes and they left for their bases in Kuwait, the spokesman added.

U.S. Central Command headquarters in Florida said in a statement that in response to recent Iraqi hostile acts, "coalition aircraft used precision-guided weapons today (Sunday) to strike two air defense radar systems near Al Basrah in southern Iraq...."

It said that so far this year, there had been "more than 120 separate incidents of Iraqi surface-to-air missile and anti-aircraft artillery fire directed against coalition aircraft."

"Coalition aircraft never target civilian populations or infrastructures and go to painstaking lengths to avoid injury to civilians and damage to civilian facilities," it added.

It said "target battle damage assessment" was still going on.

In London, a British Defense Ministry spokesman said U.S. or British planes attacked an Iraqi radar site after they were "threatened." He insisted the United States and Britain tried to minimize casualties.

"There was a response to being threatened today," the spokesman said. "Coalition aircraft did strike at a radar site near Basra," he added

U.S. and British pilots are policing two no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq set up after the 1991 Gulf war.

The zones, which Baghdad does not recognize, were imposed to protect a Kurdish enclave in the north and Shi'ite Muslims in the south from possible attacks by the Iraqi government.

The raids have increased in recent months amid threats from US President Bush to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Washington has accused Baghdad of developing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Iraq denies the charges.

(China Daily August 26, 2002)