The Boston Globe February 12, 2003
Airstrike reflects shift in targets
By Robert Schlesinger, Globe Staff, 2/12/2003
WASHINGTON - US and allied forces patrolling the ''no-fly'' zone over southern Iraq attacked a mobile ground-to-ground missile launcher yesterday, the military said, marking a major change in targeting for allied sorties.
Previously, planes patrolling the zones had mainly targeted elements of the Iraqi air defense network such as anti-aircraft artillery, surface-to-air missiles, radar sites, or communications facilities that help integrate the parts of the system. Occasionally, the planes have attacked anti-ship missiles, but the targeting of missiles meant to strike land targets was new, according to military officials and other specialists.
US Central Command, which monitors the southern no-fly zone, said the strike was prompted by Iraq's moving the mobile launcher below the 32d Parallel, which, a command spokesman said, was in violation of a UN Security Council resolution that ''prohibits the Iraqis from introducing military enhancements in southern Iraq.''
A Pentagon official identified the weapon destroyed as a truck-borne Ababil-100 surface-to-surface missile launcher and said it has a range of approximately 110 miles.
The strike comes as US forces have continued to flow into the region and the overall tempo of strikes has risen, according to military analysts.
''It's certainly interesting that now that everything has fallen into place that's what they've started to strike,'' said Francois Boo, an associate analyst at GlobalSecurity.org, a defense think tank in Virginia.
''In the past, Centcom justified the strikes on the basis that they're opposing a threat to coalition aircraft monitoring the no-fly zones,'' Boo said. ''It's certainly hard to see how a surface-to-surface missile system would pose a threat to the no-fly zone or coalition aircraft.''
The strike took place near Basra, near Kuwait.
Jim Wilkinson, a spokesman for Central Command, said the missile launcher was hit because it had been moved within range of Kuwait.
''Saddam put these offensive missiles within range of our troops and the people of Kuwait,'' he said, adding that the battery was struck ''under UN authority.''
Boo noted that according to GlobalSecurity.org's tally, there have been 39 southern zone strikes since the start of the year - half the total number from all of 2002.
The zones have long been a point of contention because the UN Security Council has never explicitly authorized or endorsed them. Rather the United States and other allies - notably Britain - established the northern and southern zones under the auspices of enforcing UN resolutions that called for Iraq to halt military action against its own civilian population.
Copyright © 2003, Globe Newspaper Company
