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- <text id=93TT1499>
- <title>
- Apr. 19, 1993: Trouble for Sure
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1993
- Apr. 19, 1993 Los Angeles
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- THE WEEK, Page 18
- WORLD
- Trouble for Sure
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p>Iraq opens fire on U.S. aircraft patrolling the no-fly zone
- </p>
- <p> The four American fighter jets were on a routine monitoring
- flight over northern Iraq when ground radar locked on--a
- clear sign of trouble. The next message was entirely
- unambiguous: several rounds of artillery fire from an Iraqi
- emplacement near the Saddam Dam. Though they were not hit, the
- American pilots followed standing orders and answered in kind,
- dropping four cluster bombs on the firing battery. The fighters,
- three F-16s and one F-4G, then returned to Incirlik air base in
- Turkey.
- </p>
- <p> It was the first exchange of hostile fire over the no-fly
- zone, imposed two years ago by U.S.-led allies to protect Iraq's
- Kurds, since Iraq fired on two French Mirage reconnaissance
- planes on Feb. 3. Why the sudden new outburst? U.S. officials
- professed to see no special reason, speculating that Saddam
- Hussein was simply beginning a new round in his strategy of
- "cheat and retreat." Iraq claimed that one of its soldiers was
- wounded in the incident but denied initiating it. A Foreign
- Ministry spokesman called the U.S. response "aggressive and
- provocative behavior."
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
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