US and British forces dropped thousands of leaflets over southern Iraq today, warning forces of Saddam Hussein against firing on British and US planes that have been patrolling the no-fly zone.
Iraqi forces fired on the plane that was delivering the leaflets and allied forces bombed an air defense operations center in response, said officials at the US Central Command.
It brought to 46 the number of "strike days" reported this year by the United States and the United Kingdom coalition put together to patrol zones set up to protect Iraqi minorities following the 1991 Gulf War. On some days, more than one area is bombed.
A coalition plane dropped 120,000 leaflets depicting a fighter jet bombing a missile launcher and a radar site with the message: "Iraqi ADA (air defense artillery) Beware! Don't track or fire on coalition aircraft!"
"The destruction experienced by your colleagues in other air defense locations is a response to your continuing aggression toward planes of the coalition forces," leaflets written in Arabic said in reference to the four dozen times coalition planes have struck back this year.
"No tracking or firing on these aircraft will be tolerated. You could be next," said an English translation released by defense officials.
"We were telling them 'Don't shoot at us or we'll shoot back'," said Navy Commander Frank Merriman, a spokesman for Central Command in Tampa, Fla. "And they were shooting at that aircraft that was dropping the leaflets!"
He said a similar leaflet drop was done last October to try to halt the firing on planes patrolling the restricted zones over Iraq.
In their retaliation, coalition planes targeted precision-guided weapons at the site, an operations center and air defense headquarters for the sector near Tallil, some 160 miles southeast of Baghdad this morning.
There was no assessment immediately available on how much damage was done.