BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Anti-aircraft fire flashed in the night sky over Iraq's capital and
sirens drove residents from the streets Friday as U.S. and British warplanes struck outside
Baghdad. Iraqi television reported one dead and nine injured in the attack.

Sirens started wailing at about 9 p.m., followed soon after by explosions from anti-aircraft
weaponry from the southern and western outskirts of the city of more than 5 million people.
Some residents of the capital - which has not heard air raid sirens for nearly two years -
huddled together in fear in their houses. Others, however, braved the danger to watch the
sky. "How many times do they destroy what they themselves said they have already
destroyed?" asked Samih Jamal, a 54-year-old retiredgovernment worker.

In Washington, Marine Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold said the strike was aimed at stopping
Iraqi attempts to make a "safe haven" for radar and command-and-control sites to conduct
attacks on allied planes bombing in the northern and southern no fly zones. Iraqi air defenses
regularly target U.S. and British patrols in the zones, and the allies planes almost daily strike
targets in the north and south.

In Friday's assault, two dozen warplanes fired long-range missiles at radar systems to the
south and north of Baghdad. It was the first strike outside the southern no-fly zone since
December 1998. Iraq's state-run satellite TV channel reported that a civilian woman was
killed, but there was no official confirmation.

State-run Al-Shabab TV broadcast pictures of civilians it said were injured in the attack.
Nine people, including at least three children, were treated for various injuries at
al-Yarmouk Hospital. "It is another aggression on Baghdad that resulted of the injury of
many women, children and elderly," said Health Minister Omed Medhat Mubarak. "Some of
them are in critical condition." Almost 50 minutes after the sirens first sounded, more sirens
announced the end of the airstrikes. People began milling around the streets, shaking their
heads and discussing the events of the last hour, but soon returned to their homes. Air raid
sirens last went off in Baghdad in February 1999 after strikes inside the no-fly zone.

President Saddam Hussein was meeting with his Revolutionary Command Council and the
government was expected to issue an official statement later Friday. President Bush
authorized the strikes Thursday morning, 10 years after a U.S.-led coalition assembled by
his father drove Iraqi troops from Kuwait. British Prime Minister Tony Blair's office said the
raids had been authorized by Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon earlier this week following
discussions with the United States. Hoon called the attacks a "proportionate response" to
increasing attacks on allied aircraft patrolling in the south by increasingly sophisticated Iraqi
defenses. "Saddam Hussein should be clear that we will not tolerate continued attempts to
endanger the lives of our aircrew," Hoon said. "But if he stops shooting at usthere will be no
need for the RAF to attack his air defenses."

The allied warplanes struck their targets Friday without leaving the southern no-fly zone,
using "standoff" weapons that zero in on targets from a distance, where the pilot is safer, the
Pentagon said.All planes returned safely to base, and the Pentagon said that the operation
appeared to have been successful and no more strikes were needed soon. The planes involved
in the strikes came from various locations in the Persian Gulf.

U.S. and British warplanes have been patrolling no-fly zones in the north and south of the
Iraq since the Gulf War, which ended in February 1991 with the end of Iraq's occupation of
Kuwait. Iraq does not recognize the no-fly zones and has been challenging allied aircraft
since December 1998.
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com