AIRSTRIKES on Iraqi air defence targets by American and British bombers are beginning to show a pattern that fits neatly into the war plan devised by the Americans for toppling President Saddam Hussein.

American jets launched air raids on Sunday on a key Iraqi base that forms part of a ring of frontline military sites protecting Baghdad. More than 30 bombing raids have taken place in the past three months.

The latest attack by aircraft from the carrier the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Gulf was the eighth time in two months that coalition aircraft enforcing the southern no-fly zone have targeted the big Iraqi base of Tallil, 175 miles southeast of Baghdad.

Tallil and other key airbases targeted recently, such as al-Kut and al-Amarah, form a network of Iraqi air defence facilities safeguarding the approaches to Baghdad.

With President Bush giving warning to Saddam of inevitable military action if he fails to comply with the new United Nations Security Council resolution to allow weapons inspections, every no-fly zone airstrike, particularly in the south and west, is helping to prepare the way for an invasion.

Based on the leaked plan for an invasion that has emerged in American newspapers, the strategy of General Tommy Franks, commander of US Central Command, will be to attack from three directions — north, south and west.

Tallil, the most heavily hit airbase in recent weeks, has two big runways, as well as hardened bunkers to shelter aircraft and munitions. It is also believed to have been a storage site for chemical weapons in the 1991 Gulf War.

The base at al-Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, has been targeted four times in the past two months. The base is strategically located to protect the southern approaches to Baghdad. In the 1991 Gulf War, the United States flew at least 72 Stealth bombing missions against the base during the opening stages of the air campaign.

None of the airstrikes, in response to Iraqi groundfire, has been aimed at putting any of the bases out of action, but the clear objective of US Central Command, in the lead-up to a real war, is to disrupt Saddam’s integrated air defence network and to undermine the command-and-control set-up between bases in the south and Baghdad.

US Central Command, in charge of Operation Southern Watch, covering the no-fly zone south of the 33rd parallel, said yesterday that the latest raid, the third this month, was solely in retaliation for a hostile act by the Iraqis. Two surface-to-air missile sites had been moved closer to Tallil, which Central Command said was in violation of UN resolutions. The presence of the sites was deemed a threat to coalition aircraft and they were attacked with precision-guided bombs. No RAF aircraft were involved.

The level of retaliatory strikes has increased significantly in the past three months. At the beginning of the year, there were relatively few responses from coalition aircraft, despite a high rate of attacks from Iraqi surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery. There were only six airstrikes in the first four months of the year in both southern and northern no-fly zone areas.

In May, June and July there were 14. But since August 5 there have been 32 retaliatory airstrikes. This month, the three strikes so far were all against targets at or near Tallil and al-Kut.

The targets in recent weeks have included air defence operational facilities, integrated operations centres, command and control sites and mobile air defence radars. US bombers hit a ground-launched anti-ship missile facility near Basrah on September 8 after the Iraqis had started to target coalition warships in the Gulf.

On board the USS Abraham Lincoln, American bomber pilots admitted that the daily patrols over the no-fly zones had become a dress rehearsal for war and provided an opportunity to damage Iraq’s military capability in the lead-up to a conflict.

A senior officer in the carrier said: “To fly over the same territory you’re going to be fighting over is a real luxury. It makes it infinitely easier. We have gained a significant amount of combat experience.”

The pilots have been authorised to hit a wider range of targets. The officer said: “The target set has changed a bit since we were last here two years ago.”

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