BAGHDAD/WASHINGTON, 10 October — Four Iraqis were killed and 10 injured yesterday as US and British warplanes bombed Nineveh province, 400 km (250 miles) north of Baghdad, an Iraqi military spokesman said. The aircraft, which flew in from Turkish airspace, "staged 16 armed sorties" over seven other regions of northern Iraq, the spokesman said.
The US military earlier said American warplanes attacked an Iraqi surface-to-air missile system in northern Iraq with precision-guided munitions. It said the missile system was northwest of the town of Mosul in a "no-fly" zone which is enforced by US and British aircraft flying out of Incirlik air base in Turkey.
The raid came as Baghdad warned fellow Arab states that any US strike on Iraq would rebound on them, but Egypt urged Iraqi leaders to respond positively to US demands that they scrap weapons of mass destruction.
"No Arab country is free of the threat, even if it takes part alongside America in the aggression against Iraq," Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz told reporters during a visit to Damascus. "Don’t think that (they are safe) if they make nice statements and offer bases to the Americans. When the crime ends, they will be made to submit to America and Zionism."
But Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said that US President George W. Bush’s latest comments "contained many positive elements" and that the American position on Iraq was "gradually changing". Mubarak was quoted by Egypt’s official Middle East News Agency as saying: "Bush, in his latest speech, gave Iraq a chance to respond to Security Council resolutions to destroy all weapons of mass destruction.
And Kuwait’s armed forces chief said the Kuwaiti Army could intervene in Iraq if the United States launched an assault on the country. "We are limited by our constitution, which says that we are a defensive force," Gen. Ali Al-Mumen said in an interview with a group of foreign journalists. "We are here to defend Kuwait. If we look at it literally, we should not cross our border, but when things start flying, I don’t know what will happen," he said.
Mumen said the "greatest danger" for Kuwait was the missiles arsenal of Iraq, which under UN disarmament terms is allowed to possess missiles with a range of up to 150 km (90 miles). "Chemical weapons are always in our minds; he (Saddam Hussein) would have no hesitation to use them if he were cornered," said the general.
The White House said the United States would like to see Iraqi President Saddam Hussein tried before a special war crimes tribunal similar to the one created following the Bosnian war. Asked what the United States would do with Saddam if he were caught, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said: "If you remember what was going on with Serbia, it would be the international community" that would set up "a special tribunal."
The gap between the five permanent members of the UN Security Council on defining tough new terms for UN weapons inspections in Iraq is slowly closing, diplomats said. More than one Council diplomat said the United States seemed willing to drop some proposals that would give inspectors more muscle, in exchange for a resolution spelling out hard consequences for Iraq if it failed to disarm. France has not ruled out the use of force against Iraq, but insists that it must not be the automatic reaction.
