It said the fighter jets used precision-guided munitions to hit an Iraqi mobile radar and cable repeater sites located near the cities of An Nasiriyah, approximately 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Baghdad, and Basra.

The strikes occurred at approximately 4:30 am Eastern Standard Time, and military experts were still assessing the damage, the command said.

"Coalition strikes in the no-fly zones are executed as a self-defense measure in response to Iraqi hostile threats and acts against coalition forces and their aircraft," the command stated.

"The coalition executed today's strike after Iraqi surface-to-air artillery fired on coalition aircraft and the presence of the mobile radar in the southern NFZ."

In Baghdad, the official Iraqi news agency INA quoted an unnamed military spokesman as saying the allied planes bombed "civilian installations" in the southern Zi Qar and Wasset provinces.

But the Central Command argued that US and British aircraft "never target civilian populations or infrastructure and go to painstaking lengths to avoid injury to civilians and damage to civilian facilities."

On Saturday, coalition planes hit the Iraqi bases near Al Kut, Qal'at Sukkar and Al Amarah located in the southern no-fly zone.

SPACE.WIRE