Iraq sends messages to stop raids against it

Iraq's minister of culture and information and the acting foreign minister Humam Abdul Haleq has called upon the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and the chairman of the UN Security Council to carry out their assigned tasks in preserving world's peace and security through interfering at the US and British governments to suspend their continued and unjustified raids against Iraq.

The Iraqi dailies issued on Tuesday noted that the Iraqi minister said in two messages addressed to the UN chief Annan and to the UN security council that the raids launched by the US and British planes against the Iraqi territories resulted in killing one Iraqi civilian and wounding of other 16 including one child in the last week of August.

However, Baghdad stressed that 316 persons were killed and more than 900 were wounded since December 1998 as a result of the US and British bombardment of Iraq.