Iraqi Radar Site Blasted by U.S. Jet : Persian Gulf: It is first such blow against a tracking facility outside north, south ‘no-fly’ zones.

A U.S. fighter jet apparently destroyed an Iraqi radar-tracking site south of that country’s northern “no-fly” zone Sunday after the Iraqis targeted the American aircraft while it was on routine patrol, the Pentagon announced.

The incident marked the second time in eight days that the Iraqis have provoked allied warplanes in what some officials suspect reflects an effort by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to test Western reaction following a unilateral cease-fire that he declared in January.

It was not immediately clear whether the move was just an aberration or was intended to signal that Baghdad is about to abandon its cease-fire policy.

It was the first time since the Persian Gulf War that an American warplane has bombed a tracking site that is located outside one of the no-fly zones that the West has imposed in northern and southern Iraq--suggesting that Washington is taking a tough line.

U.S. policy, outlined repeatedly to Iraq, is to permit American warplanes to retaliate immediately if they feel threatened by an Iraqi action, whether it involves actual shooting or the use of tracking radar. A spokesman Sunday said that policy had not changed.

U.S. officials said Sunday’s incident occurred at 1 p.m. Iraqi time. The radar site was located near Quayyarah airfield, about 30 miles south of Mosul, the major city in the northern no-fly zone, and 11 miles south of the zone’s southern border.

The U.S. plane, an Air Force F-4G Wild Weasel, was on routine patrol with another F-4G inside the northern no-fly zone when it was targeted by the Iraqi radar, the Pentagon said. The pilot fired a high-speed anti-radiation missile, and the radar beam disappeared.

Iraq’s official news agency reported that three Iraqi soldiers were wounded in the incident and quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman denouncing the attack as provocative and hostile behavior. Both U.S. pilots returned safely to their base in Incirlik, Turkey.

On April 9, Iraq fired at four U.S. fighters patrolling its northern no-fly zone, and the jets--three F-16 Falcons and an F-4G Wild Weasel--dropped four cluster bombs on the artillery site. Later bomb-damage assessments showed the artillery site was destroyed.

That incident interrupted a two-month cease-fire and presented President Clinton with his first visible challenge from Baghdad since just after he took office. The last previous Iraqi challenge to a Western airplane occurred Feb. 3.

The April 9 incident came a little more than a week after Secretary of State Warren Christopher had told reporters he could envision no way that Iraq could fully comply with U.N. requirements imposed after the Gulf War as long as Hussein remained in power.

Earlier, the Administration had been trying to depersonalize the U.S. conflict with Iraq by softening earlier assertions by the Bush Administration that Hussein would have to be removed before the West could restore normal relations with Baghdad.

Since then, Clinton has been attempting to take a middle road, insisting that Iraq must comply fully with U.N. cease-fire requirements but not criticizing Hussein openly. At the same time, Hussein has mostly held his fire, hoping for better treatment by the West.

The northern no-fly zone was established in 1991 as part of an effort by the Western allies to protect the Kurdish population of the region from Iraqi bombing and strafing. A similar no-fly zone was established last August over southern Iraq to protect the Shiite Muslim population there.