US planes have dropped 240,000 leaflets on damaged sites in southern Iraq, warning the Iraqi military not to repair targets that were bombed yesterday.
The drop, the sixth since October, was over facilities located between Al Kut and An Nasiriyah southeast of Baghdad.
The bombs each contained three different leaflets, two of which urged the Iraqi military not to repair communications equipment and facilities that aid in tracking and engaging 'coalition aircraft'. A third said Western aircraft were enforcing the no-fly zone for the protection of the Iraqi people and cautioned that threatening the planes could draw another air strike.
But the US rejected as 'patently false' an Iraqi claim that an oil company facility in Basra had been bombed.
Iraq claimed four people were killed and 27 injured in attacks on civilian installations, while Basra residents claimed at least eight were killed when planes bombed the Southern Oil Company.
US spokesmen said the only attacks were against air defence and communications facilities, in Basra and Al Kut.
UK publishes new human rights dossier
The British government has published a second dossier of human rights abuses allegedly perpetrated by the Iraqi regime.
The dossier details the Iraqi regime's alleged methods of torture, including eye gouging, piercing of hands with drills, and acid baths.
The authors of the report also accuse President Saddam Hussein of introducing severe penalties such as cutting off ears and tongue amputation for criminal offences and for speaking out against him.
Women are allegedly raped, tortured, and summarily executed.
However, the London-based human rights organisation Amnesty International has accused the British government of exploiting the human rights issue for its own ends.
