Allies Hit Facility in Iraq’s ‘No-Fly’ Zone

WASHINGTON — U.S. and British warplanes attacked an Iraqi mobile air defense command-and-control facility Saturday in response to threats to coalition aircraft patrolling the southern “no-fly” zone, the U.S. military said.

The facility, near Al Kut, about 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, was targeted with precision-guided weapons after Iraqi forces moved it into the zone, said the U.S. Central Command, based in Tampa, Fla.

U.S. and British planes patrol two zones -- areas they placed off limits to Iraqi aircraft -- over northern and southern Iraq as a way to enforce U.N. resolutions to protect ethnic Kurds and Shiite Muslims from attack by the Iraqi military.