U.S. warplanes widened their undeclared war with Saddam Hussein yesterday by attacking Iraqi missile launchers that have been moved into range of ships off the Kuwaiti coast.
American jets, mainly F-14s, F-15s and F/A-18s, have fired on Iraqi anti-aircraft sites and communication links on virtually a daily basis for the past month as Saddam challenged the West’s right to impose two “no-fly” zones over his country.
But yesterday’s half-dozen confrontations included the first time in the recent campaign that the U.S. bombed shore-to-ship missile launchers.
Pentagon officials said the Iraqis had deployed the weapons recently on the al-Faw peninsula on the Persian Gulf, near U.S. Navy ships that have been enforcing the U.N. economic embargo against Iraq since the Gulf War.
The Pentagon said two Navy F/A-18s and two F-14s flying from the USS Carl Vinson dropped precision-guided bombs on the Soviet-era missile launchers in yesterday’s incident.
The damage could not be immediately determined.
A Pentagon official, meanwhile, said Iraq has moved a substantial number of surface-to-air missile launchers out of the “no-fly” zones to central Iraq – apparently to avoid further losses.