Unmanned US aircraft `lost' over Iraq

A US Air Force unmanned reconnaissance aircraft has failed to return from a mission over southern Iraq and may have been shot down.

Colonel Rick Thomas said it was not yet clear why the Predator aircraft was missing.

A Pentagon spokesman said it was the first US aircraft of any kind lost in Iraq in the 10 years since US and British planes began patrolling "no-fly" zones.

"The aircraft may have crashed or been shot down," Thomas said.

American planes have attacked a SA-3 surface-to-air missile site in northern Iraq, a US official said.

The US European Command, responsible for US operations in northern Iraq, said American planes retaliated when Iraqi forces fired anti-aircraft artillery from sites north of Mosul.

Thomas said there was no plan to attempt to recover the low-speed aircraft.

"Iraqi air defences have shot an American reconnaissance plane coming from Kuwaiti territory," the official Iraqi News Agency quoted an unidentified military spokesman as saying.

The plane, according to the news agency, contained "high-tech equipment" and was shot down near Basra, 340 miles south of Baghdad.