U.S. Jets and Drones Attack Militants in Iraq, Hoping to Stop Advance
Airstrikes in Iraq Seen Near Erbil
Smoke can be seen rising from the Khazer
checkpoint outside the Kurdish capital of Erbil, where targeted
airstrikes were authorized against Islamic radicals.
Publish Date August 8, 2014.
Photo by Uncredited/AP video, via Associated Press.
DOHUK,
Iraq — The United States launched a series of airstrikes against Sunni
militants in northern Iraq on Friday, using Predator drones and Navy
F-18 fighter jets to destroy rebel positions around the city of Erbil,
the American military said Friday.
The
strikes were aimed at halting the advance of militants with the Islamic
State in Iraq and Syria toward Erbil, the Kurdish capital, which is
home to a United States Consulate and thousands of Americans.
The
action marked the return of the United States to a direct combat role
in a country it left in 2011. Warplanes dropped 500-pound laser-guided
bombs on a number of targets: a mobile artillery piece that was being
towed from a truck and had begun shelling Erbil, a stationary convoy of
seven vehicles, and a mortar position.
The
military also used a remotely piloted drone to strike another mortar
position on Friday afternoon. After the first strike, it said in a
statement, ISIS militants “returned to the site moments later” and “were
attacked again and successfully eliminated.”
The Pesh Merga’s Fight Against ISIS
A look at who the pesh merga are, their
history as Iraq’s most formidable force, and why President Obama has now
authorized airstrikes against ISIS to support them.
Video by Quynhanh Do and Emily B. Hager on
Publish Date August 8, 2014.
Photo by Safin Hamed/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images.
Defense
officials expressed confidence that they could achieve within a few
days one of President Obama’s stated goals: stopping the advance of the
militants on Erbil.
Less
certain was whether the other objectives Mr. Obama had announced —
breaking the siege on tens of thousands of refugees stranded on Sinjar
Mountain and protecting Americans in Baghdad — could be achieved as
quickly, given the instability of Iraq’s internal politics and the
difficulty of protecting and eventually evacuating the stranded people.
While
Mr. Obama said Thursday night that he had authorized military strikes,
if necessary, to help liberate the refugees on Sinjar Mountain, all of
the military attacks on Friday were directed toward stopping the ISIS
militants’ advance on Erbil.
The leader of ISIS sent a defiant message to the Americans in an audio statement posted on YouTube in June and recirculated on Twitter on Friday.
A Message to America From ISIS
In a YouTube video that appears to have
been published by ISIS in June, a voice, identified as the group’s
leader, warns the United States of an imminent confrontation with Muslim
fighters.
Video by YouTube on
Publish Date August 8, 2014.
Photo by Stringer/Iraq/Reuters.
“This
is the message of the leader of the faithful,” the leader, known as Abu
Bakr al-Baghdadi, wrote in a message addressed to “America, the
defender of the cross.”
“You
should know, you defender of the cross, that getting others to fight on
your behalf will not do for you in Syria as it will not do for you in
Iraq,” he said. “And soon enough, you will be in direct confrontation —
forced to do so, God willing. And the sons of Islam have prepared
themselves for this day. So wait, and we will be waiting, too.”
ISIS fighters had come within 25 miles of Erbil in a rapid advance that took American military planners by surprise.
Rear
Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement that ISIS
fighters near the mortar positions had been “successfully eliminated,”
although he did not say exactly how many had been killed. Another
Defense Department official said that the precision of the laser-guided
bombs dropped was such that in the case of the strike on the stationary
convoy, “you know that vehicle and the people in it don’t exist
anymore.”
The Navy fighters launched from the aircraft carrier George H. W. Bush, which has been deployed in the Arabian Sea.
Kurdish
officials said the first round of American bombs struck on Friday
afternoon in and around Mahmour, a town near Erbil. They reported an
airstrike in the same location on Thursday, before Mr. Obama’s
announcement; the Pentagon denied that American warplanes carried out
that earlier attack.
Kurdish
fighters, known as pesh merga, have been pressed hard in recent days by
the militants, who have seized several towns near Erbil from the Kurds
and taken the Mosul Dam, one of the most important installations in the country.
“The
airstrikes are being led by the U.S.A., and pesh merga are attacking
with Katyusha,” said Halgurd Hekmat, a spokesman for the Kurdish
fighters, referring to a type of Russian-made tactical rocket.
Unicef on Iraq’s Crisis in Sinjar
Will Parks, the United Nations Children’s
Fund chief field officer in the northern Kurdish region of Iraq,
discussed the crisis in Sinjar, where tens of thousands of people are
stuck in the mountains.
Publish Date August 7, 2014.
Photo by Adam Ferguson for The New York Times.
Many
members of religious minorities in northern Iraq, including Christians,
have fled to Kurdish territory to escape the advancing militants, who
have imposed harsh fundamentalist rule in areas they control. Others —
including tens of thousands of Yazidis, who follow an ancient faith
linked to Zoroastrianism and are stranded in a mountainous area to the
west — have been trapped and besieged by the militants. Delivering
humanitarian aid to that group is one of the purposes of the American
operations in Iraq, Mr. Obama said.
Britain,
a close ally and coalition partner of the United States in the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan, said Friday that it would not take part in the
current military action but would provide humanitarian aid and technical
help.
“What
we have decided today is to assist the United States in the
humanitarian operations that started yesterday,” the British defense
secretary, Michael Fallon, said in London on Friday.
Turkey,
a NATO ally that borders northern Iraq, said on Friday that it, too,
would increase humanitarian aid to the region, news agencies reported.
Interactive Graphic
A Rogue State Along Two Rivers
The victories gained by the militant group calling
itself the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria were built on months of
maneuvering along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
Nikolay
Mladenov, the United Nations’ top envoy in Iraq, said airdrops of aid
on Friday had reached a fraction of the 100,000 people trapped on Sinjar
Mountain. Mr. Mladenov has proposed a humanitarian corridor that would
allow civilians to travel from the mountain to a safe zone in a
Kurdish-controlled area. Late Friday, the United States military said it
had made a second round of airdrops of food and water.
But
the civilians are currently trapped between front lines. The fighting
would have to stop to open such a corridor, or the warring parties would
have to agree to let people pass into safety. Mr. Mladenov said
negotiations were underway. “It’s a matter of days,” he said. “It
depends on two things. First, how successful the airdrops can be —
they’ve been there for a few days; there’s no access to water, food,
medicine. Secondly, it depends on the security situation on the ground.”
While Kurds welcomed Mr. Obama’s announcement of American assistance, the reaction in Baghdad was mixed.
“Obama’s
speech did not delight Iraqis,” said Hakim al-Zamili, a leader of a
main Shiite bloc in Parliament, the Sadr faction, who were among the
strongest opponents of American involvement in Iraq. “They are looking
out for their own interests, not for ours.”
“They
should have provided Iraq with weapons,” Mr. Zamili added, possibly
alluding to the United States’ suspension of deliveries of F-16 fighter
jets and combat aircraft to Iraq.
Another
Shiite leader, Sami al-Askari, who is close to Prime Minister Nuri
Kamal al-Maliki, said Mr. Obama’s call for airstrikes had come “too
late.”
“They should have made this decision when hundreds of Shiites and Sunnis were being killed every day,” Mr. Askari said.
Mr.
Askari accused the Obama administration of being interested only in
“protecting the Kurdish regional government and Christians, not the rest
of Iraq.”
“Iraqis
must rely on themselves and their genuine friends, like Iran and
Russia, who have supported Iraq in its battle against ISIS,” he said.
Russia has sent Sukhoi aircraft to the Iraqi forces, and Iran has
trained and financed militia forces and sent advisers.
The
decision to announce American air operations on Thursday appeared to
reflect a view among American, Kurdish and Iraqi military leaders that a
crippling attack by the militants was more imminent than had been
widely recognized. The militants’ seizure of two towns within 20 miles
of Erbil stoked panic and the beginnings of an exodus of residents to
Sulaimaniya, the largest city to the southeast.
Military
leaders believed that if the city emptied, it would be more vulnerable
to a militant attack, officials said privately, asking not to be quoted
because they did not want to shake morale.
The
airstrikes appeared to improve the mood in Erbil on Friday, at least
temporarily, according to people there. Fewer cars were at the city
gates trying to leave, they said.
“The bombing changed the mood of the people,” a pesh merga officer said.
Correction: August 8, 2014
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated the day that Turkey said it would step up humanitarian aid to northern Iraq. The announcement was made Friday, not Thursday.
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated the day that Turkey said it would step up humanitarian aid to northern Iraq. The announcement was made Friday, not Thursday.
Correction: August 9, 2014
An earlier version of this article misidentified the type of aircraft that Russia sent to Iraqi forces. They are fixed-wing Sukhoi aircraft, not helicopters; Sukhoi does not make helicopters.
An earlier version of this article misidentified the type of aircraft that Russia sent to Iraqi forces. They are fixed-wing Sukhoi aircraft, not helicopters; Sukhoi does not make helicopters.
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