WASHINGTON. Mar 2: In one of the heaviest raids on Iraq in two months. US jets on Monday dropped more than 30 bombs on radio relay sites, communications targets and air defence guns in Iraq's northern no-fly zone, the Pentagon said, report s Reuters.

Defence Secretary William Cohen again stressed to reporters that US pilots had been given increased flexibility to hit a range of air defence targets in no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq when they are targeted by President Saddam Hussein's forces.

In a statement from Incirlik air base in Turkey, the US European command said F-15s based at Incirlik "dropped more than thirty 2.000-pound and 500-pound laser-guided bombs on Iraqi communications sites, radio relay sites and anti-aircraft Artillery sites" near Mosul in response to radar threats.

Details were not provided, but Monday's strikes were

among the most extensive of about 100 such incidents in the no-fly zones since late December. They came a day after US Jets struck a communications facility in the north, apparently interrupting the flow of Iraqi oil through a pipeline into Turkey.

That oil is used by Iraq to pay for food and medicine for civilians under an agreement with the United Nations.

In Mosul, an Iraqi official said fresh raids took place on Monday on parts of the pipeline control system 'and a residential area in Ain Zahla, an oil area near Mosul.

"American warplanes caused civilian casualties and other damage to a link in the control system of the Iraqi-Turkish pipeline Monday, resulting in the isolation of the metering station in Zakho.” the oil official told Reuters.

In Washington. Cohen said at a news conference that attacks on air defence targets in

the western-patrolled no-fly zones, set up after the 1991 Gulf War. would continue as long as patrolling US and British aircraft were targeted by Saddam’s

"Pilots have been given greater flexibility to attack those systems that place them in Jeopardy. They are not simply going to respond to a triple-a (anti-aircraft artillery) site or to a SAM (surface-to-air missile) site." Cohen said.

'They can go after command and control and communications centres as well that allow Saddam Hussein to try to target them and put them in'jeopardy. So they have some flexibility and they will continue to have that flexibility." he added.

Senior military officials said last month that US pilots were being given more discretion to disrupt Iraqi air defences.

Iraq does not recognise the no-fly zones, set up to protect Kurds in the north and Shi'ite

Muslims in the south from Saddam’s military, arid since December Baghdad has stepped up its challenge to western warplanes patrolling them.

That stance followed intense US and British cruise missile and bombing raids on Iraqi targets in mid-December after Baghdad halted all cooperation with US weapons inspectors.

The Pentagon also announced on Monday that Cohen would make an eight-day visit to six friendly Gulf states and to Israel, Egypt and Jordan beginning on Friday.

He will also go to Bahrain. Saudi Arabia. Oman, the United Arab Emirates. Qatar and Kuwait to discuss Iraq’s threat to the region and US bilateral military ties with each of the countries, the Pentagon said.

Cohen said on Monday that US air strikes in the northern zone On Sunday "May or may not" have interrupted the flow of oil from Iraq to Turkey.