U.S. Shoots Down Iraqi Jet Fighter in ‘No-Fly Zone’ : Persian Gulf: Baghdad threatens ‘appropriate’ response in first incident since the U.N. ordered the southern region off limits to Saddam Hussein’s planes.

WASHINGTON —  In the first aerial hostilities in the region since the Persian Gulf War, the United States shot down an Iraqi fighter plane Sunday after two Iraqi aircraft crossed 20 miles into the “no-fly zone” over southern Iraq and confronted two U.S. warplanes, the Pentagon said.

Baghdad Radio immediately labeled the incident “a criminal act of aggression” and broadcast a statement from an unidentified Iraqi military spokesman threatening to respond “in the appropriate manner and at the appropriate time.”

The incident, which occurred about midnight PST Saturday, was the first since a U.N. resolution was adopted Aug. 27 declaring all Iraqi territory below the 32nd Parallel off limits to Iraqi aircraft as part of Operation Southern Watch, which is intended to protect Shiite Muslims from Iraqi air attacks.

The confrontation came during the second of two flights of Iraqi warplanes into the prohibited zone within a 40-minute period, a Pentagon spokesman said. The first time, two U.S. F-15s attempted identification before the Iraqi planes turned back.

The second time, two U.S. F-16s were ordered to intercept two Iraqi fighters. “The hostile aircraft were issued a verbal warning,” the Pentagon said. “The Iraqi aircraft turned to confront the U.S. aircraft. One Iraqi aircraft was destroyed.” The other fighter escaped.

Initial indications were that the planes were Russian-built MIG-23s. Pentagon officials said that the status of the pilot of the downed plane is unknown but that an Iraqi helicopter was allowed to fly a search-and-rescue mission to the crash site inside the no-fly zone.

CIA Director Robert M. Gates said he did not know whether the Iraqi warplanes were off course or deliberately challenging the no-fly edict. In the past, Iraqi aircraft have strayed off course into both the southern no-fly zone and another one above the 36th Parallel intended to protect the Kurdish population in northern Iraq.

In Houston, President Bush called the Iraqi incursion “a big mistake” and warned Baghdad to comply with the U.N. restrictions.

“I’ve heard that it might be some test of our will here near the end of my presidency,” Bush told reporters during a stop on his way to South Texas for his annual quail-hunting vacation. “I think those F-16s sent a message to him pretty clearly.

“If he does it again, the same thing will happen.”

Bush was awakened at the White House and told of the incident shortly after it occurred.

In Little Rock, Ark., President-elect Bill Clinton issued a statement supporting the Administration. “This is part of a series of tests of international resolve to bring Iraq into compliance with U.N. resolutions,” it said.

“(Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein is mistaken if he believes the United States or the United Nations lack that resolve. I support efforts to bring Iraq into compliance.”

The Iraqi spokesman claimed Sunday that the aircraft were on routine patrols “over our national soil and within our boundaries.”

But the consensus among U.S. officials Sunday was that the move was intentional and part of a broader scheme orchestrated personally by Hussein.

“It seems to me part of the pattern over the last several months of increasing Iraqi aggressiveness in challenging the United Nations both in terms of the inspections and in terms of the relief effort,” Gates said on the CBS interview program “Face the Nation.”

The incident follows a month of simmering tension between the U.S.-led Persian Gulf coalition and Hussein caused by repeated Iraqi sabotage of convoys carrying U.S.-financed aid to the Kurds of northern Iraq and threats to U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq.

Administration and Pentagon sources said that Hussein is trying to take advantage of a lame-duck U.S. Administration and the recent shift of U.S. and U.N. attention to Somalia to test the coalition’s interest and resolve in Iraq.

“I think Saddam will push at every point to see how far he can go,” Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.) said Sunday. “That’s precisely what he’s doing now. He’s taking advantage of this transition period between the two administrations to see if he can get some advantage.

“He will almost certainly challenge Clinton when he becomes President,” Hamilton predicted.

Most of the Iraqi challenges have occurred in the north, where up to six army divisions are deployed near the Kurdish enclave. Baghdad claimed that the troops are conducting exercises, although some U.S. officials suggested that the deployment is intended to intimidate the Kurds.

Since late November, when the United Nations voted against lifting sanctions against Iraq, bombs have been planted on trucks in three U.N. convoys carrying relief supplies to Kurdish dissidents in the north. Two of the bombs exploded, and the third was discovered before it went off.

U.S. officials blamed Iraqi guards at roadblocks through which the convoys had to pass. In mid-December, the United Nations said there would be no more convoys until better arrangements could be worked out with Baghdad, which has since refused to discuss the issue.

The issue of suspended aid is critical because of winter weather and because the Kurds need fuel for tractors to plant winter crops. Without it, the north faces a massive crop failure in the spring, according to Laurie Mylroie, an Iraqi expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who just returned from northern Iraq.

Although the north is under the military protection of the coalition’s Operation Provide Comfort, the Kurdish zone still faces the same U.N. economic sanctions as the rest of Iraq. The failure of its wheat crop could force the Kurds to deal again with Hussein, she added.

In April, the Kurds, who have long fought for autonomy from Baghdad, elected a parliament and declared Kurdistan a federated state. But Hussein was quoted in Baghdad newspapers Sunday as pledging to apply “the rule of law” in Kurdistan, once the U.N. coalition leaves.

U.N. weapons inspectors also recently have been threatened, U.S. officials said. And in a recent speech, Gates charged that Iraq was trying to secretly maintain its programs to develop nuclear, chemical, biological and ballistic missile weapons of mass destruction.

In response to the Iraqi moves, the U.S.-led coalition recently has stepped up reconnaissance flights over Iraq and returned AWACS radar surveillance aircraft to 24-hour operations, according to Pentagon sources. Because of Operation Restore Hope in Somalia, the U.S. warship Kitty Hawk earlier had been moved away from the Persian Gulf and aerial surveillance of Iraq had been cut back.

But Iraq did not appear cowed by the moves or the loss of one of its few remaining warplanes Sunday. “We hold the aggressors accountable for their unjustified crime,” the Iraqi military spokesman said.

“We are confident that this criminal action by the countries of the imperialist-Zionist aggression against Iraq and the Arab nation will be indignantly received by the masses of our people and nation and will be denounced by world public opinion.”

Iraqi Incursion

U.S. forces fired on Iraqi warplanes in restricted airspace over southern Iraq. One of the Iraqi planes was destroyed, the fate of its pilot unknown; the other Iraqi plane escaped. The incident marked the first time an Iraqi aircraft was destroyed in a confrontation with U.S. aircraft since Aug. 27, when the United Nations declared a “no-fly zone” for Iraqi planes south of the 32nd Parallel. Another no-fly zone, intended to protect the Kurdish population in northern Iraq, exists above the 36th Parallel.

Times staff writers Art Pine and Melissa Healy in Washington, David Lauter in Little Rock and James Gerstenzang in Texas contributed to this story.