[AnNahar] U.S. warplanes carried out their first air strike on the Islamic State near Baghdad, as world diplomats pledged Monday to support Iraq in its fight against the bad boys.The United States early last month began air strikes against IS positions in northern Iraq, but Monday's announcement that the campaign had targeted the jihadists near the Iraqi capital marks an escalation in the scope of the mission.
It comes less than a week after U.S. President Barack Obama
Because I won...
, in a primetime television address to the nation, ordered a "relentless" war against the Islamic State, including air strikes in Syria and expanded operations in Iraq to "destroy" the marauding jihadist army.
"U.S. military forces continued to attack ISIL (IS) holy warriors in Iraq, employing attack and fighter aircraft to conduct two air strikes Sunday and Monday in support of Iraqi security forces near Sinjar and southwest of Baghdad," U.S. 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 ISIL targets as Iraqi forces go on offense, as outlined in the president's speech last Wednesday."
The strikes destroyed six IS vehicles near Sinjar and an IS fighting position southwest of Baghdad that had been firing on Iraqi forces.
They bring the number of U.S. air strikes across Iraq to 162.
- 'Any means' -
It came as representatives from about 30 countries and international organizations, including the United States, Russia and China, met in Gay Paree to discuss the crisis triggered when IS overran large areas of Iraq and Syria, carrying out beheadings and forced religious conversions.
In a joint statement, diplomats vowed to support Baghdad "by any means necessary, including appropriate military assistance, in line with the needs expressed by the Iraqi authorities, in accordance with international law and without jeopardizing civilian security."
| Pretty words. Still, even little Albania is sending weapons and ammunition to the Kurds, and Canada just sent 69 more special forces soldiers to advise them. |
The Gay Paree statement made no mention of Syria, where Lions of Islam hold a quarter of the country and where Bashir al-Assad's regime still had friends around the Gay Paree conference table, including Russia.
U.S. Secretary of State John F.
I was in Vietnam, you knowKerry
Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a
lucky hat,conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State...
, attending the talks, stressed again that "we're not going to coordinate with the Syrians."
| Although apparently we are still quietly giving the Syrians information about ISIS movements and positions. But really that's not the same thing at all. |
| Not precisely he, himself, you understand, but his "people", the ones in uniform who do his bidding, ignoring all risk to themselves. |
... for fear of being murdered...
, warned that U.S. forces will target Syrian anti-aircraft systems if they take aim at American planes conducting strikes inside Syria against Islamic State rebels.
On the ground in Iraq, sporadic festivities broke out near the town of Dhuluiyah, north of Baghdad, where security forces and allied rustics prepared for an operation against IS-led bad boys.
The area would appear to be the target of the next major drive against IS in Iraq, after a successful operation to break the siege of the town of Amerli farther north.