BAGHDAD. Feb 1: US and British warplanes launched a new wave of attacks-on Iraqi air defences on Sunday, as Baghdad dismissed a UN security council initiative to review the eightyear embargo as "procrastination/’ reports AFP.

Air defences in southern Iraq were targeted by seven missiles and bombs while one missile was fired at an anti-aircraft battery in the north, the official INA news agency quoted an air defence command spokesman as saying.

It was the second attack launched in as many days by allied planes as part of an intense military campaign unleashed on "rio-fly" zones in northern and southern Iraq since the end of December's Operation Desert Fox.

"Our brave anti-aircraft defenses managed to resist the enemy planes in the northern and southern sectors, forcing them to flee back to the evil dens they came from." the Iraqi spokesman said.

"Enemy formations" firing from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait carried out the raids on the south while the warplanes involved in the northern raid came from Turkey, the spokesman said.

The United States said US and British planes monitoring the southern "no-fly" zone had struck'two military sites, while a US fighter jet from Turkey's Incirlik base fired a missile at a radar site in the northern zone.

The attacks came only- hours after the Security Council —-which had been split over last.

months' US and British air strikes — agreed to convene three review panels on disarmament and long-term weapons monitoring, humanitarian concerns, and issues stemming from the 1991 Gulf War over Kuwait.

But a leadership meeting chaired by President Saddam Hussein was followed by an announcement that Baghdad "was not Consulted on the formation of these panels and that’s why tills measure does not concern us."

The work of the United Nations would "take several months," Said a statement carried INA, dismissing the move as 'nothing more than procrastination and a prolongation of the unjust embargo.”