The US has bombed militants near Baghdad in support of Iraqi forces, striking close to the capital for the first time in its expanded campaign against Islamic State (IS) militants.
However, in a sign of their growing strength, a monitoring group said the militants, previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, had managed to bring down a Syrian warplane conducting strikes over their stronghold of Raqa in north-central Syria yesterday.
The US air strike against IS fighters in the Sadr al-Yusufiyah area, 25km from Baghdad, came as world diplomats pledged to support Iraq in its fight against the militants and less than a week after US President Barack Obama ordered a “relentless” war against IS.
“US military forces continued to attack [IS] terrorists in Iraq, employing attack and fighter aircraft to conduct two air strikes [on] Sunday and Monday in support of Iraqi security forces near Sinjar and southwest of Baghdad,” the US Central Command said in a statement.
“The air strike southwest of Baghdad was the first strike taken as part of our expanded efforts beyond protecting our own people and humanitarian missions to hit [IS] targets as Iraqi forces go on offense, as outlined in the president’s speech last Wednesday,” Central Command said.
The strikes destroyed six IS vehicles near Sinjar and an IS position southwest of Baghdad that had been firing on Iraqi forces.
They bring the number of US air strikes across Iraq to 162.
Iraqi security spokesman Lieutenant General Qassem Atta yesterday welcomed the expanded US action, saying the US “carried out an important strike against an enemy target in Sadr al-Yusufiyah.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights yesterday said the IS militants had shot down a Syrian warplane conducting strikes against them.
“IS fighters fired on a military aircraft, which crashed,” the group said. “It is the first aircraft shot down since the regime launched air strikes against the jihadists in July following their declaration of a caliphate in late June.”
The expansion of the US air campaign came as representatives from about 30 countries and international organizations vowed during talks in Paris on Monday to support Iraq in the fight against the IS.
In Damascus, Syrian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Faisal Muqdad yesterday criticized the international community for excluding his government from the recent talks on building a coalition to tackle the IS group.
“The fight against terrorism is not a public relations exercise,” state-run news agency SANA quoted him as saying.
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