Iraq Claims`To Down U.S. Spy Plane

Sep 11, 2001

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A second unmanned U.S. spy plane has been downed by Iraq in
less than a month, Baghdad said Tuesday, following American reports that Iraq was beefing
up its ability to strike U.S. and British aircraft patrolling no-fly zones over Iraq's north and
south.A U.S. military spokesman said a plane was missing and its loss was being
investigated.

The official Iraqi News Agency reported that wreckage of the downed aircraft - carrying
``highly advanced equipment'' - had been found. It did not mention any pilots.Maj. Brett
Morris, spokesman for a U.S.-British military task force in the Gulf, said coalition forces had
lost a Predator aircraft Tuesday similar to the reconnaissance plane lost last month.
``We have lost contact with our unmanned observation aircraft,'' Morris told The Associated
Press in Manama, Bahrain.

``There is an investigation going on ... with regard to the Predator's disappearance,'' he said.
``We are working with the assumption that the plane has gone and are trying to figure out
why it went down and how it went down.''

U.S. officials have noted that Iraq seems to have been improving its targeting ability and
missile defense systems, while also adopting a strategy to attack slow-moving American
surveillance aircraft rather than high-performance fighter jets.

Morris said the Predator plane took off early Tuesday for southeastern Iraq. The unmanned
aircraft, which is controlled from land, disappeared later Tuesday morning while patrolling
in the area, he said.

Earlier Tuesday, the Iraqi agency reported that a U.S. spy plane was shot down at 11:30
a.m. near the southern city of Basra, 350 miles south of the capital.

``The plane was coming from Kuwaiti territory and it was used to provide the American
enemy with information concerning our installations, vital sites and our air-defense
formations,'' the news agency said, quoting an unidentified spokesman from the Iraqi Air
Defense Command.

The Iraqi spokesman said the plane was ``shot down in revenge for the martyrs of great Iraq
and free Palestine,'' according to the agency's report.

Last month, Iraq claimed to have shot down a Predator reconnaissance plane in the Basra
area. The U.S. Defense Department acknowledged losing a plane in that area, but said it was
unsure whether it had been hit by hostile fire or had crashed on its own.

The Pentagon has said that plane was the first U.S. aircraft lost in Iraq in the 10 years since
U.S. and British planes began patrolling ``no-fly'' zones - except for a ``friendly fire'' incident
in 1994. Then, two American F-15 fighter jets mistakenly shot down two U.S. Army
helicopters over northern Iraq, killing 15 Americans, five Iraqi Kurds, three Turks, two
Britons and a Frenchman.

The United States and Britain have been patrolling Iraqi skies to protect Shiite Muslim
rebels in the south and Kurdish insurgents in the north from government forces. The southern
patrols also provide early warning of potential Iraqi military moves toward Kuwait.

Iraq considers the no-fly zones violations of its sovereignty and has stepped up its efforts to
shoot down allied planes. In 1998, President Saddam Hussein offered cash rewards to any
Iraqi military unit that shoots down an enemy warplane or captures a U.S. or British pilot.
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