New Missile Attacks -- Scuds Shot Down In Saudi Arabia, Israel

Iraq continued its missile assault today against Saudi Arabia and Israel, as witnesses reported seeing U.S. Patriot anti-missile weapons blow up incoming missiles over both countries.

Two Patriot missiles intercepted an Iraqi Scud missile over northern Israel, an army spokesman who requested anonymity said. The attack followed a countrywide air-raid alert that sent Israelis to their air-tight shelters for the fourth attack since Friday.

No other missiles were fired, and there were no casualties, the spokesman said.

Eyewitnesses reported seeing two Patriots intercept an incoming missile at low altitude over Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, not far from the end of a runway at a major allied air base. The witnesses said a large object fell to the ground and exploded, sending smoke and dust into the air and tremors throughout the base area.

Witnesses also reported seeing two Patriot missiles launched in Riyadh, 275 miles southwest of Dhahran, after air raid sirens sounded in the Saudi capital.

Israel had suffered more than 100 casualties in three earlier Iraqi barrages. No casualties and little damage have been reported in Saudi Arabia, the target of at least 17 Iraqi missiles over the past week.

Earlier in the day, U.S. troops engaged an Iraqi patrol in Saudi Arabia, and six Iraqi soldiers were captured and two U.S. soldiers were slightly injured, a U.S. military official.

The skirmish last night along the Iraqi-Saudi border involved elements of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, said Air Force Lt. Col. Mike Scott.

It was the first reported ground confrontation in

Saudi territory in which U.S. troops were hurt and Iraqis were seized, although there have been sporadic skirmishes and artillery duels since Operation Desert Storm began. The wounded Americans were treated and returned to duty, he said.

The missile attacks and armed clash came as as Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said they were satisfied with progress of the one-week-old Gulf war.

However, Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Iraq is ``an enemy that is ingenious'' whose air force may yet ``choose to come out and challenge us.''

For now, Powell said, Iraqi air power has been ``totally ineffective,'' leaving the United States and its allies with significant air superiority in the opening phase of the war.

In a Pentagon briefing that marked the one-week mark of the war to liberate Kuwait from Iraq, Powell said more than 10,000 allied sorties - military sources in the Gulf placed the number at about 12,000 - had destroyed 41 Iraqi aircraft, either in air-to-air combat or on the ground. The Iraqis have about 700 aircraft.

Powell said the United States has lost at most one plane in air-to-air combat. Total U.S. losses in the first week totaled 10, he said.

Cheney preceded Powell at the news conference and told reporters that ``there may well be surprises ahead for us,'' including possible Iraqi air strikes, terrorist attacks and additional missile attacks.''

Cheney acknowledged that Iraq's mobile Scud missile launchers was proving more difficult to destroy than expected.

In other developments in the Gulf war:

-- Israeli officials announced that a U.S. Patriot missile had struck an incoming Scud yesterday but failed to bring the Iraqi missile down. The Scud missile exploded in a residential neighborhood in Tel Aviv, injuring at least 67 people, causing three fatal heart attacks and damaging 21 buildings, authorities said.

``For reasons that we still don't know, the target wasn't destroyed completely and the warhead came down. . . . The reason is under investigation,'' said Brig. Gen. Uri Ram, commander of Israel's air defenses.

U.S. officials later said that the Patriot missiles was fired by an Israeli crew, which along with a U.S. Army crew is operating the Patriot systems.

-- At the White House, spokesman Marlin Fitzwater cautioned that U.S. television reports from Baghdad play ``into the hands of Saddam Hussein'' and should be treated with skepticism.

``We must point out once again that any reports coming out of Baghdad are in fact coming out of the Iraqi government,'' Fitzwater said.

He specifically referred to a report by Cable News Network correspondent Peter Arnett that Iraqi officials had taken him on a tour of the bombed-out ruins of an infant-formula factory that CNN had toured in August.

Fitzwater categorically denied allied forces had hit an infant-formula factory and said the facility was a biological-weapons plant that ``has been heavily guarded and has barbed wire.''

CNN had no immediate comment on Fitzwater's remarks.

-- An oil field in southern Kuwait that was ignited by Iraqi occupiers was still burning today, oil-industry executives in Bahrain said. The U.S. military reported the blazes at several Kuwaiti oil facilities were producing heavy smoke that could hamper allied operations.

-- Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency said allied warplanes today pounded the Iraqi port city of Basra - site of Iraq's military headquarters for the Kuwait theater - and the nearby Faw oil center. The agency said explosions could be heard in the Iranian city of Khorramshah, 25 miles away.

Four Kuwaiti bombers flew missions over their homeland today and struck Iraqi positions, Kuwait's news agency said.

-- In Moscow, a member of the Soviet general staff, speaking to the Interfax news service, said U.S. and allied military officials have greatly exaggerated the success rate of their air strikes.

``Ninety percent of the strikes have not hit any targets,'' Interfax quoted the unidentified general as saying.

Interfax did not identify the general or give his source of information.

At least in part, his remarks may represent sour grapes. Most of Iraq's military hardware was purchased from the Soviet Union, and the Soviet military and defense industry heard a lot of scathing remarks when the initial allied bombing raids were reported to be so effective.

Meanwhile, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev warned Tuesday yesterday that the Gulf war is in serious danger of spreading out of control and called for stepping up efforts to end it.

-- Fourteen members of the 101st Airborne Division were reported injured when an anti-tank round discharged while they were loading ammunition and equipment in Saudi Arabia. None of the injuries were life-threatening, a spokesman said.

-- A Marine pilot was killed today when his Harrier jet crashed during a training exercise. The pilot was not identified.

-- Compiled from Associated Press, Knight-Ridder Newspapers and Baltimore Sun.