US and British warplanes today attacked an Iraqi air-defence radar at an airfield near the southern port of Basra after the patrolling jets were fired at from the ground, the US military said.
US and British jets also attacked an anti-aircraft missile battery in the same southern "no-fly" zone near Tallil about 160 miles southeast of Baghdad, the Pentagon said.
The attacks are the latest in an escalating series of strikes.
US A-10 warplanes last week dropped 120,000 leaflets in the southern no-fly zone warning the Iraqi military to stop trying to shoot down US and British jets over northern and southern no-fly zones of the country, set up after the 1991 Gulf War.
But the US Central Command in Tampa said today that patrolling aircraft were fired at with surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft guns.
The command declined to provide details of the Basra attack, but military officials said it was at a radar at the airfield.