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U.S. warplanes and drone carry out 2nd round of attacks in Iraq
[LATIMES] The U.S. military carried out a second round of air attacks on snuffies in northern Iraq on Friday, using an armed drone and four warplanes to bomb artillery positions and a vehicle convoy near the beleaguered city of Irbil, the Pentagon said.Irbil is the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan... A missile launched by a U.S. drone struck a mortar position outside the city in late afternoon local time, Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon front man, said in a statement. Still doiong "surgical" instead of "shock and awe"... When fighters with the myrmidon Islamic State group returned to the site moments later, "the snuffies were attacked again and successfully eliminated," Kirby said. A little over an hour later, four F/A-18 fighter jets bombed a convoy of seven vehicles and a mortar position, he said. "The aircraft executed two planned passes. On both runs, each aircraft dropped one laser-guided bomb, making a total of eight bombs dropped on target, neutralizing the mortar and convoy," Kirby said. The attacks followed a U.S. airstrike earlier in the day in which two F/A-18 fighters dropped 500-pound laser-guided bombs on a "mobile artillery piece" being used by the militants. The Pentagon provided no details on how many militants were killed or wounded in the attacks. It was the first major U.S. military action in the country since combat troops left three years ago. Militants of the Islamic State have been advancing toward Irbil, the Kurdish regional capital where thousands of Iraqis have sought sanctuary from the breakaway Al Qaeda group. Posted by: Fred 2014-08-09 |
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