US strikes ISIL targets near besieged Iraqi town

Women and children are evacuated in a military helicopter by Iraqi forces from Amerli, north of Baghdad August 29, 2014. The Unted States carried out airstrikes against ISIL targets near Amerli on SatShow more

BAGHDAD // The United States carried out air strikes on Saturday against ISIL fighters near the besieged Shiite town of Amerli in northern Iraq and airdropped humanitarian aid to civilians trapped there, the Pentagon said.

President Barack Obama authorised the new military action, broadening US operations in Iraq amid an international outcry over the threat to Amerli’s mostly ethnic Turkmen population.

Aid was delivered by US aircraft as well as planes from Britain, France and Australia, signalling headway in Mr Obama’s efforts to draw allies into the fight against ISIL.

Iraqi army and Kurdish forces closed in on ISIL fighters on Saturday in a push to break the Sunni militants’ siege of Amerli, a town surrounded by the militants for more than two months.

Armed residents of Amerli have managed to fend off attacks by the ISIL fighters, who regard its majority Shiite Turkmen population as apostates. More than 15,000 people remain trapped inside.

“At the request of the government of Iraq, the United States military today airdropped humanitarian aid to the town of Amerli, home to thousands of Shia Turkmen who have been cut off from receiving food, water, and medical supplies for two months by ISIL,” said Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary.

“In conjunction with this airdrop, US aircraft conducted coordinated air strikes against nearby ISIL terrorists in order to support this humanitarian assistance operation,” he said, adding that a key objective was to prevent a militant attack on civilians in the town.

He said the operations would be “limited in their scope and duration” as required to protect Amerli’s population.

When Mr Obama ordered the first air strikes and air drops in Iraq earlier this month, he justified the military operation in part to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe for thousands of ethnic Yazidis trapped by ISIL militants on Sinjar mountain in northern Iraq.

In mid-August, he declared that the militant siege there had been broken.

Earlier on Saturday, two officers said Iraqi troops, militia and Kurdish peshmerga were advancing on Amerli from four directions.

A major in the Iraqi army, who was advancing north towards Amerli from Udhaim, said progress was slow because the militants had mined the roads. He said they were around 15 kilometres from the town, while those approaching from the north were just 3 km away.

The major said he had counted the corpses of more than 40 militants killed in Iraqi air strikes on the road between Udhaim and the village of Injana.

Also on Saturday, the Pentagon said US warplanes and armed drones had carried out five air strikes on ISIL fighters near Iraq’s largest dam, the latest in a series of attacks in support of Iraqi and Kurdish forces.

The strikes destroyed an ISIL armed vehicle, a fighting position and weapons, and damaged a building near Mosul Dam, the Pentagon said. Backed by US air power, Kurdish forces recaptured the strategic facility nearly two weeks ago.

Separately on Saturday, a suicide bomber driving a car packed with explosives killed at least 11 people in a town just south of Baghdad.

The suicide bombing took place at a checkpoint at a northern entrance to the town of Yusifiya, 15 km from the capital, said a police officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The suicide bomber drove into the checkpoint and blew up his car amongst vehicles waiting to be searched,” the officer said.

ISIL militants overran most of Sunni Arab areas of Iraq after seizing the northern city of Mosul on June 10, and have proclaimed a caliphate straddling the border with Syria, where they also control vast swathes of territory.

The lightning offensive brought the militants within range of the capital of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region earlier this month, prompting air strikes by the United States.

The Kurds have since been slowly regaining ground from the militants and on Saturday advanced on the northern town of Zumar.

Peshmerga spokesman Halgurd Hikmat said control over Zumar would help the Kurds retake Rabia and Sinjar, two other areas seized by ISIL.

Violence in Iraq this year has reached levels not seen since 2006-2007, when the country was in the throes of civil war.

* Reuters