Iraq says planes hit oil company, four dead
( 2002-12-02 11:04 ) (7 )

Western warplanes hit an oil company office block in Basra in southern Iraq Sunday, killing four people and wounding 27, an Iraqi military spokesman said.

US officials confirmed an attack occurred but said coalition planes, which police two no-fly zones in southern and northern Iraq, hit an Iraqi air defense facility in response to Iraqi artillery fire.

"US and British warplanes raided the Southern Oil Company in Basra. Four people were martyred and several others wounded during the raid," one resident, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters by telephone from the port city.

An Iraqi military spokesman said in addition to the four dead, 27 people were wounded in the attack. A civil defense source said casualties included passers-by on a road near the company.

An official from the company said the warplanes targeted administrative offices.

"The Southern Oil Company building itself was hit and some staff were killed," another SOC employee told Reuters by telephone. "No oil facilities were hit."

In a statement, the US Central Command in Tampa, Florida, said coalition aircraft targeted Iraqi air defense facilities near Basra "after Iraqi forces fired anti-aircraft artillery at coalition aircraft in the Northern No-Fly Zone."

It said civilians and civilian facilities were not targeted.

The Iraqi Southern Oil Company supervises Iraq's oil exports under the oil-for-food deal with the United Nations via Mina-al- Bakr terminal in southern Iraq. A second outlet is through the Turkish port of Ceyhan in the Mediterranean.

Oil sources said the raid would not interrupt Iraq's oil exports under an oil-for-food deal with the United Nations which allows Baghdad to sell oil to buy supplies for the Iraqi people.

The zones were set up after the 1991 Gulf War to protect a Kurdish enclave in the north and Shi'ite Muslims in the south from attack by President Saddam Hussein's military.

Iraq does not recognize the zones and views them as "state terrorism and wanton aggression," Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri told the United Nations in a letter last week.

US officials say continued firing at patrolling Western jets by Iraqi defenses is a direct violation of a November 8 UN resolution, aimed at ridding Iraq of any nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons. Other members of the UN Security Council, including Britain, disagree with that view.