U.S., Allies to Enforce ‘No Fly’ Zone in S. Iraq : Persian Gulf: Action is intended to protect Shiites. Britain, France warn that violators will be shot down.

Britain and France announced Tuesday that the U.S.-led Gulf War coalition will create a “no-fly” zone over southern Iraq to protect besieged Shiite Muslims there. They said they will shoot down any Iraqi aircraft that violate the zone.

The word came as Bush Administration officials expressed concern over the significance of a newly rebuilt Iraqi air base in the south and over intensified Iraqi attacks on U.N. guards and relief workers in the north.

“There is clear evidence now of the systematic murder, genocide, of the Shiites,” said British Prime Minister John Major as he announced establishment of the exclusion zone south of the 32nd Parallel.

“We propose to monitor the whole area from the air. We will instruct the Iraqis not to fly in that area,” Major said. If Baghdad defies the coalition, Iraq “will be attacked,” said the prime minister, who cut short a vacation in Spain to return to London for the five-hour emergency Cabinet meeting that preceded the announcement.

In Paris, French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas also said the Western allies will forbid Iraqi military flights over southern Iraq. He added that the U.N. Security Council is discussing the establishment of a safety zone for the Shiites similar to the coalition-protected Kurdish area in the north established last year during Operation Provide Comfort.

Although Washington did not echo the British and French announcements Tuesday, U.S. officials have already outlined a plan that would send American aircraft into southern Iraqi airspace to protect the Shiites. And Administration officials said Tuesday that most of the equipment and personnel needed for such an operation is either in place or on its way. They said the zone could be established within the next few days.

The Pentagon last week dispatched a 30-person air warfare command staff as well as Special Forces units in preparation for creating the air shield over the southern quarter of the country.

Britain, which already has some warplanes based in Iraq’s neighbor, Turkey, is expected to send six high-performance Tornado combat aircraft and two in-flight refueling planes to help police the exclusion zone, while France is likely to provide a similar number of aircraft and the United States substantially more. The allies would then mount 24-hour air patrols in the zone.

“If we find an Iraqi aircraft in the air over southern Iraq, we will shoot it down,” a British military source said.

But a senior U.S. official said the coalition members have not yet decided whether their response to the Iraqi crackdown should be limited to attempts to impose the zone.

“It’s a lot easier to go after the air,” the official said. But he drew a contrast between the number of Iraqi troops in the region--believed to be about 60,000--and the fact that air strikes against the Shiites have been relatively limited.

Until now, another official said, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s forces have launched only two significant aerial campaigns against the Shiite insurgents, the first in May and the latest in mid-July. Only the second raid involved “full-blown fighter aircraft,” a source said.

“The question is, what kind of scope are we really talking about here?” the official said of a coalition response. “The response could be extremely extensive--U.N. troops on the ground and that sort of thing--or it could be fairly limited.”

The British and French announcements came against the backdrop of U.S. and Arab concerns about the reconstruction of a military air field bombed during the Persian Gulf War, new roads that provide security forces better access to rural Shiite areas and the draining of parts of the southern marshland--in which the Shiites are hiding--in recent weeks.

All are interpreted by the coalition as signals that Iraq plans to escalate its campaign against Shiite insurgents. One well-placed official described the airfield as “a major base capable of handling fixed-wing fighter aircraft” and said it has become a major source of concern for U.S. officials monitoring the Iraqi crackdown.

In what may reflect a split between a White House eager to challenge President Hussein and the Pentagon’s concern about a military quagmire, however, others said the base is “not all that important” and “did not really change the balance of power.”

One official noted that its significance is more symbolic than strategic. “Iraq’s been trying to restore its infrastructure, and this is another indication of the incremental process,” said one official.

Pentagon spokesman Pete Williams said Tuesday that Iraq is building more roads into Shiite population areas and draining marshes used as a refuge for more than 200,000 rebels who fled urban areas after their uprising against Hussein failed in March, 1991. The number of flights by Iraqi helicopter gunships also has increased.

In contrast to the northern Kurds, the southern Shiites, who constitute at least 55% of Iraq’s 17.5 million people, have received little attention since the departure of American troops after the Gulf War, even though Baghdad’s treatment of them has been far harsher.

In 1980, Hussein ordered the secret execution of Shiite dissident leaders and their relatives. And at the beginning of the war with Iran, the Iraqi dictator expelled almost a quarter-million Shiites, while ordering Draconian measures to keep the community in line.

One of the prime areas of Hussein’s current crackdown is the borderland marshes to which the Shiite rebels fled. Baghdad has not, however, differentiated between defectors and tribal Shiites who have lived in the marshes for centuries.

Meanwhile in the north, Hussein also appears to be escalating the campaign against U.S. forces and international relief workers. A Swedish U.N. guard was shot and wounded Monday in a road ambush, and three Danish U.N. guards narrowly missed being injured by a hand grenade thrown at a house where they were staying.

The separate incidents are the latest in the escalating series of attacks against the lightly armed U.N. forces and unarmed Western relief workers in the Kurdish north. Since the end of June, at least 13 attacks have occurred--blamed by the Kurds on Baghdad and by the Iraqi government on Kurdish guerrillas. One U.N. guard has been killed.

Western analysts say they believe that the incidents are part of a deliberate Iraqi intimidation campaign designed to erode the cohesion and commitment of the coalition.

Wright reported from Washington and Tuohy from London. Times staff writers Douglas Jehl and Stanley Meisler in Washington contributed to this article.