Tuesday Skirmish Over Iraq

U.S. warplanes bombed an Iraqi communications site Tuesday after being fired on by anti-aircraft artillery in the no-fly zone over northern Iraq, according to a statement from their base in southern Turkey.

U.S. Air Force F-15s and F-16s, Â"responding in self-defense,Â" dropped laser-guided bombs between approximately noon and 2:30 p.m., Iraqi time, on a communications site north of the city of Mosul. The site was providing data to Iraqi air defenses, the statement said.

The site was used to feed location data on Operation Northern Watch aircraft to Iraqi anti-aircraft artillery and surface-to-air missile sites, the statement said.

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Air strikes on targets in northern Iraq and in a no-fly zone in the south of Iraq have become a regular occurrence since December, when Baghdad began actively challenging the patrols.

The U.S.-British Operation Northern Watch operates out of Turkey's Incirlik Air Base, some 340 miles from the Iraqi border.

The force is designed to protect the mainly Kurdish population north of the 36th parallel from air attack by Iraqi government forces.

Most of the area is under the control of Iraqi Kurdish groups that slipped from Baghdad's control after the 1991 Gulf War, but the Iraqi government retains a triangle of territory around the city of Mosul.

Turkey's permission is needed for any planned strikes against Iraq from its territory, but planes flying from Incirlik are allowed to fire in self-defense against any threat, including being tracked by radar.