The United States has "put on hold" plans for large-scale "retaliatory" airstrikes on Iraq after an alleged missile attack on a US spy plane last month, a Pentagon official told CNN on Monday.
Sources said the United States was back to its usual policy of striking smaller targets that threatened coalition planes on an "as needed" basis, in response to violations of the US-imposed "no-fly" zone and attacks on US aircraft by Iraqi air defenses.
The decision was taken, the sources said, because of concern that the negative reaction from US allies in the region was not worth the limited effect the bombing would have on Iraqi air defenses.
Officials told CNN the United States also has had difficulty in recent days finding appropriate targets because Iraq had dispersed most of its anti-aircraft missiles and radars in anticipation of a major strike.
Meanwhile, Iraq continues to "violate" the no-fly zones over its own country, sources reported.
Sources said that on Saturday an Iraqi MiG-23 flew some 60 miles into the southern no-fly zone near where a US Predator unmanned aerial vehicle was conducting surveillance. The Iraqi jet left the no-fly zone before US planes could respond.
Sources told CNN on July 26 that a military response was planned following an attempt to shoot down a U-2 spy plane over Iraq's southern no-fly zone, two days earlier.
The Iraqi Foreign Ministry later denied the attack on the U-2 and said the intended target had been a US F-15 fighter.
The US-UK coalition enforcing the no-fly zone has no UN mandate.
While the no-fly zones are ostensibly in place to protect Kurdish and Shiite minorities in Iraq, US and British planes fly out of Turkish airbases even as Turkey mounts large attacks on its own Kurdish minority – Albawaba.com
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