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Predator hits Iraqi missile support van
From Jamie McIntyre
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Four days after Iraq shot down a spy drone over the southern no-fly zone, a Predator fired a Hellfire missile to destroy a mobile communications van used to control surface-to-air missiles, Pentagon sources told CNN Monday. The Friday strike demonstrated how the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle, once used only for surveillance, is now being used increasingly as an offensive weapon equipped with air-to-ground and sometimes air-to-air missiles, sources said. The Predator used in the attack was operated by the U.S. Air Force. Meanwhile, U.S. and British aircraft struck Iraqi air defense communications facilities and an air defense radar Monday in the southern no-fly zone with "precision-guided weapons," the U.S. Central Command said. Assessment of the damage was pending, the military said. The Central Command did not specify the type of aircraft used. It said the aircraft attacked "in response to Iraqi threats against coalition aircraft monitoring compliance of U.N. Security Council resolutions over southern Iraq." In Friday's Predator attack, sources said the communications van was tracked by the drone near Al Kut, approximately 95 miles southeast of Baghdad, before the Hellfire missile destroyed it. The Central Command announced the strike in a press release Friday but did not mention the Predator's role. The release said simply, "Operation Southern Watch coalition aircraft used precision-guided weapons ... to target an Iraqi military air defense command and control system which supported highly mobile surface-to-air (SAM) missile systems." A few days earlier, an Iraqi MiG shot down a U.S. Predator in the southern no-fly zone. The United States has already used the missile-equipped Predator drone in its war on terror in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Last month, a Hellfire missile fired by a Predator controlled by the Central Intelligence Agency killed six al Qaeda suspects in Yemen; one of those killed was an al Qaeda chief wanted in connection with the bombing of the USS Cole.
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