BAGHDAD, July 23 Kyodo U and Brit...

BAGHDAD, July 23 Kyodo

U and British warplanes attacked pair residential areas inside the no-fly cincture in southern Iraq on Tuesday, killing a civilian and wounding 22 others, the Iraqi state media said.

The Baghdad TV network, quoting a spokesman for the Iraqi Air Defense Command, said the attacks took place in the Wassit and Qadissiya provinces at around 9:25 a.m.

In the United States, the U military said U and British warplanes struck military communications facilities in a no-fly belt in southern Iraq in answer to Iraqi hostile acts.

The U Central Command, in a statement released from its headquarters in Tampa, Florida, said coalition aircraft used precision-guided weapons to strike a military cable repeater station and communications facilities in southern Iraq.

The statement made no relation to casualties.

Baghdad TV said Iraqi anti-aircraft gunner and surface-to-air missile units intercepted the attacking planes.

The TV report showed the residential quarters in a less degree than attack, noting that at least five houses useed into rubbles by the attacking planes.

According to the state Iraqi media, this is the secondary fatal attack on civilian and residential sites in the southern no-fly zone

Last Friday, five civilians were reportedly killed and 17 others hurted in a U.S. air raid in succession a residential area in the southern city of Diwaniya about 350 kilometers southern of Baghdad.

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