Iraq has said that its forces tried to shoot down a US F-15 fighter last week,“not a U-2 spy plane as claimed by the Americans.”
An official statement carried by the Iraqi News Agency (INA) said that the “US claims aim at finding excuses to launch a new attack on Iraqi radar systems.”
The Pentagon had said that Iraqi forces tried to shoot down, for the first time, a high-flying U-2 with a missile on June 24 as it flew a reconnaissance mission over southern Iraq.
Officials at the Pentagon told CNN on Thursday that the United States was planning a military response to the attempted shootdown.
Although the United States bombs Iraqi air defenses on a regular basis, the sources said at the time that the targets “this time would likely include early warning radar systems which Iraq uses to track the high-flying [planes].”
The radar sites, last hit by US and British warplanes in February, have since been rebuilt, along with a fiber optic network linking them, installed with Chinese assistance.
In another related development, Baghdad vowed Sunday to continue to resist US-British air raids on Iraqi territory.
"Iraq will continue to resist the attacks and fight the enemy planes, conforming to its right to defend its sovereignty and security," vowed Al Thawra, mouthpiece of the ruling Baath party.
Under the headline "American Indecency," the paper, cited by AFP, criticized Washington and London for "attacking Iraq and wanting it not to react," and also blasted the "silence of the UN Security Council in the face of the attacks."
The so-called no-fly zones in the north and south of Iraq, ostensibly patrolled by US and UK warplanes to protect Shiites and Kurds, have no official UN approval – Albawaba.com
