¡¡¡¡BAGHDAD, Oct. 10 (Xinhuanet) -- US warplanes on Thursday attacked the international airport in Basra, southern Iraq, for the third time in two weeks, causing damage to its radar system and the service building, a spokesman for the Ministry of Transport and Communications said.

¡¡¡¡At 11:10 a.m. local time (0810 GMT), US planes bombed the civil airport in Basra, about 600 km south of Baghdad, destroying its civilian radar system and damaging the terminal hall, the official Iraqi News Agency quoted the spokesman as saying.

¡¡¡¡US and British warplanes have attacked the same international airport on Sept. 26 and 29, causing damage to the radar system and the service building as well.

¡¡¡¡Basra is within the so-called southern no-fly zone, parallel to another one in northern Iraq.

¡¡¡¡US and British planes have been patrolling the two 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.

¡¡¡¡On Aug. 27, US and British planes fired two missiles on the civil airport in the northern city of Mosul, damaging the traveller's building and the radar system that controlled the take-offs and landings of civil airliners, a source from the transportation and communication ministry said. Enditem