Iraq hits enemy plane

Baghdad, Dec. 27, INA

The U.S and British warplanes carried out on Wednesday 4 sorties from Saudi airspace, backed by an AWACS, and 26 sorties from Kuwaiti airspace.

A spokesman for Iraqi Air Defense Command said that the warplanes flew over the areas of al-Bisiya, Salman, Ashibcha and al-Jileba, southern Iraq.

Iraqi missile force and anti-aircraft artillery drove the enemy planes out of national airspace back to their bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, a plane was hit and withdrew towards Saudi airspace, the spokesman added.

Since December 17, 1998 up to December 26, 2001, the enemy warplanes carried out a total of 36152 sorties from Saudi, Kuwaiti and Turkish airspace, of which 17, 212 sorties from Saudi airspace and 10850 sorties from Kuwaiti airspace.