Combined US-Arab airstrikes at the heart of the Islamic State (IS) group’s military strongholds in Syria achieved their strategic aim of showing the extremists that their savage attacks will not go unanswered, the top US military officer said yesterday.
The US and five Arab nations attacked the headquarters of the Islamic State, previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), in eastern Syria in nighttime raids on Monday using land and sea-based US aircraft, as well as Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from two US Navy ships in the Red Sea and the northern Persian Gulf.
Separately, US warplanes also launched eight airstrikes “to disrupt the imminent attack plotting against the United States and Western interests” by a network of “seasoned al-Qaeda veterans,” the US military said.
Photo: EPA
The White House said US President Barack Obama would speak about the airstrikes before flying to New York yesterday morning for the UN General Assembly meeting.
US officials said five Arab nations either participated in the airstrikes or provided unspecified support. They were Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.
Dempsey said their role was indispensable to the US goal of showing that the battle to degrade and defeat the Islamic State militants is not just a US fight.
Photo: Reuters
US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army General Martin Dempsey called the strikes an unprecedented coalition with Arab states and said the partnering has set the stage for a broader international campaign.
“We wanted to make sure that ISIL knew they have no safe haven, and we certainly achieved that,” Dempsey told reporters as he flew to Washington after a week-long trip to Europe.
Dempsey said the five Arab nations’ agreement to join in the airstrikes came together quickly; as recently as Sunday, he told reporters that more Arab participation was needed before Obama would sign off on the air campaign.
“Once we had one of them on board, the others followed quickly thereafter,” he said, adding that the partnership came together over the past three days. “We now have a kind of credible campaign against ISIL that includes a coalition of partners.”
Several hours after the Pentagon announced the airstrikes against Islamic State targets, US Central Command said US warplanes also launched eight airstrikes “to disrupt the imminent attack plotting against the United States and Western interests” by a network of “seasoned al-Qaeda veterans” — sometimes known as the Khorasan Group — who have established a haven in Syria. It provided no details on the plotting.
Central Command said that a separate bombing mission was undertaken solely by US aircraft and took place west of Aleppo. It said targets included training camps, an explosives and munitions production facility, a communication building, and command and control facilities.
The airstrikes against Islamic State targets were carried out in the city of Raqqa and other areas in eastern Syria.
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