WASHINGTON Ñ The United States says Iraq has completed the largest
redeployment of surface-to-air missiles in several years as part of an
effort to confront allied warplanes that operate in northern and southern
Iraq.
U.S. officials said the regime of President Saddam Hussein has moved
anti-aircraft batteries to no-fly zone areas in southern and northern Iraq.
The officials said the batteries, upgraded by China, have been increasingly
engaging U.S. and British warplanes over the last few weeks.
On Monday, British and U.S. warplanes flew 16 sorties over southern Iraq
near the Kuwaiti border. No clash was reported between the allied aircraft
and Iraqi surface-to-air missile installations.
Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the
Iraqi missile activity over the weekend were the most active since 2000.
Myers told a briefing on Monday that U.S. and British aircraft on patrol of
the no-fly zones were threatened three times by Iraqi missiles since the
beginning of April.
"Some of these movements of surface-to-air missile systems into regions
where we enforce the no-fly zone, under the UN resolutions, are greater than
they've been in a couple of years," Myers said. "If they're moved inside the
no-fly zones, obviously that increased risk to the pilots that are
patrolling in those zones. And that's what's been happening."
Myers said Iraq has deployed anti-aircraft batteries near Kurdish
communities in the north. He said the Saddam regime is using new missiles
against allied aircraft that are connected to a network of radars.
"They have a very good fiber-optic system," Myers said. "I'll just leave
it at that."
U.S. officials said the Iraqi surface-to-air deployment is believed to
be aimed at using civilian communities to stop any U.S. attacks on the Iraqi
military facilities. Kurdish groups have warned Washington that Iraq is
bringing an increasing number of military assets to areas adjacent to the
autonomous Kurdistan region.
On April 19, U.S. warplanes fired two missiles at an Iraqi anti-aircraft
facilities near the northern city of Musul. Last week, U.S. planes dropped
guided bombs on an Iraqi surface-to-air missile system radar located near
Talil in southern Iraq.
