Missiles stray, hit Turkey, Syria

THE OFFICIAL news agency reported the missile hit the bus Sunday morning on the Iraqi side of the border. The bus was carrying Syrians fleeing the war in Iraq, the agency said.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Central Command said U.S. forces do not target civilians, and that their targeting is done very carefully, using precision-guided missiles, to select military targets.
The Syrian agency said the wounded were taken to a Syrian hospital on the Syrian-Iraqi border.
Syria, which strongly opposes the U.S.-led war on Iraq, has repeatedly called for a peaceful solution of the Iraq-U.S. dispute over Baghdad’s weapons arsenal.
The Syrian incident follows reports of errant missiles or bombs from both Turkey and Iran since the war began.

TOMAHAWKS SUSPECTED OVER TURKEY
Turkish media reported on Monday that suspected missiles fell from a coalition warplane heading toward Iraq over Turkish air space.
“We heard the sound of a plane, followed by an explosion,” Mehmet Yilmaz, the village leader of Ozveren, told the Anatolia news agency. “There were flames rising 3 yards into the air.”
The debris landed in an empty field, leaving a 3-foot-deep crater, said Sukru Kocatepe, governor of Sanliurfa province.
Hours later, more debris landed in Ayakli, and unnamed officials identified it as a guided missile, Anatolia said. Local officials could not be reached for comment.
Both towns are in Sanliurfa province, less than 200 miles west of the Turkish-Iraqi border.
The incidents on Sunday caused the U.S. to stop firing Tomahawk missiles over Turkish airspace, defense officials NBC News on Monday.
But the officials said Turkish air space would be used by coalition air craft flying from the carriers Harry S. Truman and Theodore Roosevelt.

IRANIAN MISHAPS
Over the weekend, as many as three U.S. missiles aimed at targets in Iraq may have landed in Iran, Pentagon officials confirmed.
The State Department assured Iran, in a message sent through Swiss intermediaries, that the United States was investigating. Spokesman Philip Reeker offered public assurances that the United States respects Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The official Iranian news agency reported that four rockets have landed in Iran over the past two days.
U.S. and Iranian officials are discussing the matter and Iran realizes that any strike was unintentional, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.
At least three people were injured, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency.
Iran also complained that coalition aircraft have violated its airspace near the southern Iraqi port of Basra. Iran has closed its airspace to coalition and Iraqi warplanes.