American and British warplanes attacked air defences in southern Iraq for the third successive day on Monday in response to attempts to shoot down the planes policing a "no-fly" zone, the U.S. military said. In Baghdad, an Iraqi military spokesman, quoted by the Iraqi News Agency, said U.S. and British planes attacked civilian installations in the southern province of Dhi Qar. Iraqi anti-aircraft and missile batteries fired back. The Iraqi spokesman said the planes carried out 67 sorties from bases in Kuwait and flew over the southern cities of Nasiriya, Kut, al Salman, Qalat Suker, Qurna, Kerbala and Qalat Saleh. He said the sorties started at 11 a.m. (3:00 a.m. EST/0800 GMT). The U.S. Central Command said in a release from its headquarters in Tampa, Florida, that the planes dropped precision bombs on a military communications site south of Al Kut, approximately 160 kms southeast of Baghdad. Sunday Western aircraft also attacked an Iraqi mobile radar and a cable relay communications target in the southern no-fly zone, the Central Command said. Saturday, warplanes hit multiple communications facilities. The Central Command also said that Western warplanes dropped 480,000 leaflets at six areas in southern Iraq on Monday, warning the military to stop targeting aircraft and repairing previously bombed targets such as fiber-optic cable communications facilities.
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