Swiss authorities are investigating a Zurich firm suspected of illegally selling machinery to Iraq used to make artillery barrels, Swiss radio reported on Friday.
The probe arose from a German investigation into six firms suspected of arms sales to Iraq in violation of international sanctions against Baghdad, it said, quoted by Reuters.
"German authorities have submitted a request for legal assistance and the justice ministry transferred this to us at the end of January to carry out," a spokesman for the Swiss Federal Prosecutors Office told the radio.
"The prosecutor's office has launched an investigation into suspicions that the war material and export control laws were broken," he added.
The radio said the unidentified Zurich company was suspected of sending the special drilling equipment worth $1.3 million to Iraq in 1999.
Meanwhile, three civilians were wounded Thursday in US and British air strikes on northern Iraq, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported.
The US military earlier said warplanes bombed air defense sites in retaliation for Iraqi anti-aircraft fire at coalition aircraft patrolling a no-fly zone over northern Iraq.
"Iraqi forces fired anti-aircraft artillery from sites north of Mosul while ONW (Operation Northern Watch) aircraft conducted routine enforcement of the northern no-fly zone," the US European Command said in a statement.
"Coalition aircraft responded in self-defense to the Iraqi attacks by dropping precision ordnance on elements of the Iraqi integrated air defence system," it said.
In Baghdad, an Iraqi military spokesman said three civilians were wounded in attacks on "civilian installations" in northern Iraq, without specifying the exact location where the casualties occurred.
Iraqi anti-aircraft batteries "went into action and forced the enemy planes to flee to their base in Turkey," he said, quoted by Iraq's official news agency INA.
The spokesman said the planes raided the Zakho, Dahuk, Akra and Ammadiya regions of northern Iraq. (Albawaba.com)
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