U.S. Carries Out Airstrikes Against Islamist Militants in Iraq

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U.S. Carries Out Airstrikes Against Islamist Militants in Iraq By Margaret Talev, Terry Atlas and Tony Capaccio Aug 8, 2014 11:29 PM GMT+0800 406 Comments Email Print <a href="javascript<b></b>:void(0)">Speed

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Aug. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer discusses President Barack Obama’s decision for the U.S. to offer humanitarian relief to Northern Iraq. He speaks with Tom Keene, Scarlet Fu and Brendan Greeley on “Bloomberg Surveillance.”

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American warplanes struck against militants from Islamic State in Iraq, pulling the U.S. back into a conflict three years after its last combat troops left.
Two U.S. fighter jets struck an artillery position used by the militants to attack Kurdish forces defending their regional capital Erbil, where U.S. diplomats and some military personnel are based, Rear Admiral John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement.
President Barack Obama authorized limited strikes yesterday, justifying them as necessary to protect U.S. personnel and prevent a massacre of Yezidis, a minority sect concentrated in northern Iraq, who have been targeted by militants. Thousands of them were stranded on a mountain after being driven from their homes earlier this week.
Iraq’s Brittle Nationhood
“I have been careful to resist calls to turn time and again to our military,” Obama said last night in remarks from the White House. “But when the lives of American citizens are at risk, we will take action.”
The escalation of U.S. involvement in Iraq comes six years after he made pulling the U.S. out of the war there the centerpiece of his successful presidential campaign, and after he oversaw the withdrawal of forces from Iraq in 2011. Until now, Obama resisted requests from Iraqi and Kurdish officials, as well as calls from members of Congress, to use U.S. air power to halt the advance of Islamic State fighters, even as they threatened the government in Baghdad.

Source: U.S. Navy via EPA A handout image released by the U.S. Navy shows sailors launching aircrafts from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush in the Arabian Gulf, on Aug. Close

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Open Source: U.S. Navy via EPA A handout image released by the U.S. Navy shows sailors launching aircrafts from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush in the Arabian Gulf, on Aug.

War Weary

In his remarks last night, Obama said he understood that the U.S. public is wary of any return to Iraq. He said the U.S. won’t be sending ground combat troops.
“I know that many of you are rightly concerned about any American military action in Iraq, even limited strikes like these,” he said. “As commander in chief, I will not allow the United States to be dragged into fighting another war in Iraq.”
Obama’s hand was forced by events, as Islamic State seized more territory in recent days and as he faced the prospect that thousands of Yezidis stranded in the mountains would die without immediate aid. The president’s authorization includes using airstrikes, if necessary, to break the siege at the base of the mountains.
“What the president wants and what the president gets aren’t necessarily the same thing,” Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow in defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, said by phone today. “He clearly wants to limit the U.S. role. But the basic problem here is the kind of things he is talking about has no prospect of ending the war.”

Photographer: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images President Barack Obama said he authorized airstrikes against militants in Iraq if they threaten U.S. personnel, and he dispatched planes to drop food and water for trapped civilians threatened with “genocide.”Close

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Open Photographer: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images President Barack Obama said he authorized airstrikes against militants in Iraq if they threaten U.S. personnel, and he dispatched planes to drop food and water for trapped civilians threatened with “genocide.”

Militants Advance

The Islamic State extremist group has conquered swaths of northern Iraq since June and this week seized the Mosul Dam, the country’s largest. The Islamic State has enriched itself by seizing infrastructure and energy assets as its makes military gains in Iraq and Syria.
The dam holds back water that, if unleashed, could flood Mosul, northern Iraq’s biggest city, and wreak damage as far as Baghdad. The dam is about 80 miles (130 kilometers) from Erbil. It was not clear whether the airstrikes will affect that battle.
There were conflicting reports today on events on the ground. Hisham al-Brefkani, a member of the provincial council of Nineveh, said the Kurdish Peshmerga militia took back the town of Telkeif in Mosul as well as part of Mosul Dam today.
Conflicting Accounts

That was denied by Zuhair Al-Chalabi, head of National reconciliation committee in Nineveh province, who said Islamic State is still in control of cities and towns as well as the dam. Residents in the area also said Islamic state fighters are still there.
The Sunni militants’ offensive -- and their threats to kill religious minorities -- has panicked tens of thousands of people and emptied towns that for centuries have been home to Yezidi and Christian communities.

Photographer: Safin Hamed/AFP via Getty Images Christians rest upon their arrival at the Saint-Joseph church in the Kurdish city of Arbil, in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, on Aug. 7, 2014. Close

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Open Photographer: Safin Hamed/AFP via Getty Images Christians rest upon their arrival at the Saint-Joseph church in the Kurdish city of Arbil, in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, on Aug. 7, 2014.

The extremists “have called for the systematic destruction of the entire Yezidi people, which would constitute a genocide,” Obama said. “The United States of America cannot turn a blind eye.”
American military planes yesterday dropped food and water for the Yezidis, who are threatened with starvation if they stay on the mountain, or slaughter if they attempt to leave.
Oil Rises

With a battle raging for control of territory and oil fields in the Kurdish area of northern Iraq, prices for crude oil rose for a second day, with Brent futures gaining 41 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $105.85 a barrel at 9:18 a.m. New York time on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. Prices are up 1 percent this week.
Standard & Poor’s 500 Index added 0.3 percent at 10:55 a.m. in New York, trimming its decline this week to 0.5 percent. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index dropped 0.6 percent.
The airstrike was conducted about 6:45 a.m. New York time by two F/A-18 aircraft that dropped 500-pound laser-guided bombs on a mobile artillery piece near Erbil, Kirby said in his statement.
The U.S. presence in Erbil has increased in recent months, as the Obama administration viewed the Kurdish-held city as a relative safe haven from the Islamic State’s advances. In June, the State Department said some staff from the U.S. embassy in Baghdad were being moved to Erbil.
Erbil’s Status

The Defense Department chose Erbil and Baghdad as the location for Joint Operations Centers where U.S. military personnel, including special forces, work with their Iraqi counterparts to bring together tactical information to help the Iraqis target the Islamic State.
U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the U.S. can distinguish between militants and civilians in case the Islamic State group tries to hide among civilian populations.
“If ISIL would attack our interests and our consulate in Erbil or the green zone in Baghdad or pursue the thousands of people, it’s pretty clear who they are and they’d be identifiable and air strikes would be effective,” Hagel told reporters in New Delhi where he’s visiting to meet with his Indian counterparts.
The president’s air strike authorization doesn’t cover other areas where the Islamic State is encroaching, including Syria or Lebanon, administration officials said last night.
U.S. lawmakers of both parties said they backed Obama’s decision to provide humanitarian aid and authorize air strikes, even as Republicans said the administration lacks a plan for confronting the militants.
Seeking Strategy

“The president’s authorization of airstrikes is appropriate, but like many Americans, I am dismayed by the ongoing absence of a strategy for countering the grave threat ISIS poses to the region,” House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement, referring to the extremist group.
Boehner, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican leader Mitch McConnell were briefed by the president’s aides before last night’s announcement.
Pelosi, who was a critic of former President George W. Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq, said in a statement it was up to Iraq’s leaders to solve the crisis there and she was “pleased by the president’s continued assurances that he will not send U.S. troops back into combat in Iraq.”
Two frequent critics of Obama’s approach in Iraq, Republican Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said in a joint statement that the president’s actions are “far from sufficient.”
They urged the U.S. to strike at the Islamic State by air and provide more military aid to Kurdish forces, the Iraqi government and rebels in Syria, where the radicals also control territory.
Iraq’s Government

Obama had held back on authorizing air strikes as the U.S has pressed Iraqi leaders to form a new government that excludes Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. U.S. officials consider Maliki, a Shiite, a divisive figure whose actions have pushed many minority Sunnis into an alliance with the radical Islamic State.
“There’s no American military solution to the larger crisis in Iraq,” Obama said last night. “The only lasting solution is reconciliation among Iraqi communities and stronger Iraqi security forces.”
The U.S. has bolstered its military presence in Iraq since the rapid advance of the Islamic State in June, sending 300 people to do assessments of the Iraqi military and the threat from militants. An additional 470 U.S. forces previously had been authorized to bolster security, especially at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.
Airdropped Aid

While the U.S. and its regional allies are united in their opposition to the Islamic State, the decision to employ the military has been complicated by the fact that attacking the extremists would benefit Maliki and Iran, as well as the Kurds, who’ve long sought to build their own state from parts of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey.
Yesterday’s U.S. airdrop, which included 5,300 gallons of drinking water and 8,000 packaged meals, may buy time to find a way that the U.S., neighboring Turkey, Kurdish forces and the Iraqi government can enable the stranded Yezidis to flee the mountains for a safe refuge.
Islamic State, which used to call itself Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, has used beheadings to intimidate people in its advance across Iraq and Syria, and terrorized religious minorities. It considers Yezidis, a community whose faith includes features of the ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism, as apostates according to its fundamentalist interpretation of Islam.
Islamic State also has seized control of Qaraqosh, Iraq’s largest Christian town, and some surrounding areas in an eastward advance into an area formerly held by the Peshmerga. The Kurdistan regional government has appealed for international help.
To contact the reporters on this story: Margaret Talev in Washington at [email protected]; Terry Atlas in Washington at [email protected]; Tony Capaccio in Washington at [email protected]
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Steven Komarow at [email protected]; John Walcott at [email protected] Joe Sobczyk

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