December 2, 2002
Iraq has complained to the United Nations over a Western air raid on its southern port city of Basra and urged the world body to end U.S. and British patrols over the country.
Foreign Minister Naji Sabri, in a letter to U.N. Secretary- General Kofi Annan, described Sunday's raid as part of "barbaric terrorist aggression" against Iraq. Iraqi officials said on Monday the bombing killed four people at oil company offices. The U.S. military insisted its planes had launched "precision-guided" weapons at Iraqi air defences and that they always took pains to avoid hitting civilians.
The United States and Britain enforce two "no-fly" zones over northern and southern Iraq.
"Until you take measures to end this barbaric terrorist aggression and lay the full responsibility for it on the governments of the United States and Britain, the Iraqi people and its army would continue to practice Iraq's legitimate right of self defence," Sabri said in the letter.
Monday's letter was the second from Sabri to Annan in two days on the no-fly zones. In a letter on Sunday before the Basra attack, Sabri said: "The raids by American and British planes on Iraq cities and villages and the infrastructure of the Republic of Iraq...is state terrorism, wanton aggression and rude interference in Iraq's internal affairs," the letter said.
Sabri also blasted London and Washington for dropping thousands of leaflets demanding Iraqi soldiers stop firing at U.S. and British planes. Sunday's letter lists eight raids between October 22 and November 17. Sabri sent a similar letter to Annan and the Security Council last month.
The zones were set up after the 1991 Gulf War to protect a Kurdish enclave in the north and Shi'ite Muslims in the south from attack by President Saddam Hussein's military. Iraq does not recognise the zones.
U.S. officials say continued firing at patrolling Western jets by Iraqi defences is a violation of a November 8 U.N. resolution aimed at ridding Iraq of any nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons. Other members of the U.N. Security Council, including Britain, disagree with that view.
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