Riyadh denies Iraqi claim of Saudi participation in air strike

Riyadh on Tuesday denied reports that two Saudi pilots took part in a raid which targeted a food distribution center in Iraq. A source at the Saudi ministry of Defense and Aviation said that, "The whole report is totally fabricated and such an incident would never happen."

Baghdad talked about the participation of Saudi pilots in "a raid waged by enemy jets" on a center for distributing foodstuffs in the Southern province.

Earlier, Washington announced that US planes carrying out patrols in the no-fly zones bombarded Iraqi positions in the northern and southern parts of Iraq.

US military jets shelled a newly-established site for anti-ship missiles on the southern Iraqi coast yesterday.

Iraq stated that western jets raided air defense sites and a food warehouse in southern Iraq and that the Iraqi Air Forces retaliated to the strikes. An Iraqi military spokesman said that 20 hostile formations violated southern Iraq's airspace and that these formations implemented 26 raids and shelled one of the food centers in El-Najaf governorate.