Coalition aircraft bomb Iraqi defense site

Florida - Operation Southern Watch aircraft struck an Iraqi air defense radar site southeast of Baghdad early Wednesday, the U.S. Central Command said.

The Iraqi military, however, said the coalition planes hit a civilian site, killing one civilian and wounding two others, according to the Iraqi News Agency.

The U.S. military said the strike -- against a site at Al Qurnah, about 130 miles southeast of the capital -- was a response to "Iraqi threats against coalition aircraft monitoring compliance of United Nations Security Council resolutions over Southern Iraq."

There was no immediate U.S. response to the Iraqi claim, but U.S. military officials have repeatedly denied targeting civilian facilities.

"Coalition aircraft never target civilian populations or infrastructure and go to painstaking lengths to avoid injury to civilians and damage to civilian facilities," a statement from the U.S. Central Command said.

The no-fly zones, designed to protect Kurds in northern Iraq and Shiites in the southern part of the country from the Iraqi regime, have been contested spots between the United States, Britain and Iraq since they were established after the 1991 Gulf War.

Iraqi officials insist that the zones violate the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and they refuse to recognize them. -- CNN News

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