¡¡¡¡BAGHDAD, Sept. 9 (Xinhuanet) -- Iraq's air defense forces Monday "probably" hit a US or British warplane in northern Iraq before it flew away, an Iraqi Air Defense Command spokesman said.

¡¡¡¡"American and British warplanes coming from Turkey carried out 16 armed sorties at 11:35 local time (0735 GMT) and evidences showed that one of these warplanes was probably hit by Iraq's missiles and anti-aircraft fire," the official Iraqi News Agency quoted the spokesman as saying.

¡¡¡¡At 7:35 local time (0335 GMT), US and British warplanes coming from their bases in Kuwait carried out 41 sorties and attacked Iraq's civil and service installations in the southern province of Misan.

¡¡¡¡Iraq's air defenses fired at the planes both in the north and inthe south, and forced them back to their bases, the spokesman added.

¡¡¡¡US and British planes have been patrolling the southern and northern no-fly zones since the 1991 Gulf War with the claimed aim of protecting the Kurds in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south from the persecution of the Iraqi government. Enditem

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