UK joins Baghdad strike

Royal Air Force planes joined U.S. jets on the mission

LONDON, England -- Britain joined the U.S. in an air raid on five Iraqi military sites near the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

London and Washington said the strikes were authorised because there had been a significant rise in the number of missiles fired at planes patrolling the no-fly zone over southern Iraq.

A spokesman for UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said it had been a "targeted and measured response to the dramatic increase in attacks on coalition aircraft in January."

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An Arab TV channel broadcast pictures said to show children injured in the attack.

It is the first time in two years that targets so close to Baghdad have been attacked.

UK Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon authorised the action earlier this week after discussions with the Americans, the prime minister's spokesman said.

Blair, who was at his weekend retreat Chequers when the planes took off, was kept informed of the Baghdad mission's progress

A UK Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said six fighter British planes had taken part in the action.

"In January there were more missiles (fired at coalition aircraft) than in the whole of the year 2000. In view of the significant rise there was no choice but to take action," she told CNN.com.

She said four GR1s, two Tornado F3s accompanied by two VC10 tanker aircraft had been involved, taking off from Ali al Salem in Kuwait. All had returned safely and the crew were being debriefed.

Friday's action was the first military strike the new U.S. President George W. Bush has ordered, but at a news conference in Mexico, Bush described it as a "routine mission."

The U.S. military has called it an "essentially a self-defence operation" with four targets south and one north of Baghdad being hit.

Air-raid sirens began sounding in Baghdad shortly before 9 p.m. local time (1800 GMT) and explosions were heard as anti-aircraft weapons fired into the sky.

An announcer on Iraqi television said: "Baghdad has come under attack by American aggressors."

Both the U.S. and UK military said the raids were directed at Iraqi military targets but Iraq has in the past accused the allies of hitting civilian targets.

Iraq has said that some 300 people have been killed and more than 800 injured since it began challenging the no-fly patrols in December 1998.

British and U.S. aircrews regularly fly patrols over the no-fly areas established over Iraq at the end of the 1991 Gulf War, in which the allied coalition drove invading Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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