The warplanes struck at least seven locations over a 10 hour period as the clock ran on a US deadline for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his two sons to leave the country or face war.

US and British officials said the strikes were within the scope of normal enforcement of a no-fly zone over southern Iraq, and the US Central Command said they were launched in response to Iraqi anti-aircraft artillery fire.

But the strikes targeted 10 artillery systems that had been moved last week into range of US and British forces massing in Kuwait for a ground offensive as well as a surface-to-surface missile system, a US defense official said.

The Central Command said long range artillery were struck at Az Zubayr and in the Al Faw peninsula, and a surface-to surface missile system near Basra.

Warplanes also bombed a traffic control radar near Basra and communications sites near Ash Shuaybah, Mydaysis and Ruwayshid in southern Iraq.

"The artillery was struck because they were a danger to coalition ground troops in Kuwait," the command said. "The air traffic control radar was used to direct Iraqi anti-aircraft artillery fire at coalition aircraft."

In western Iraq, they targeted a radar and an air defense command center near the H-3 airfield that defends the approaches to Baghdad from Jordan, the command said.

"The coalition executed today's strikes after Iraqi forces fired anti-aircraft artillery at coalition aircraft patrolling the southern no-fly zone south of the 33rd parallel in Iraq," the command said.

In London, a spokeswoman for the British Defence Ministry said, "We are flying over southern Iraq. This evening we are targeting systems which are a threat to our forces."

"We have been doing this for the last 10 years. It's the same as we've been doing, but obviously the time is perhaps more relevant," the official said.

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