US aircraft strike Islamic State in Iraq

ARBIL - Agence France-Presse

Handout photo shows sailors guiding an F/A-18C Hornet on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush in the Gulf. REUTERS Photo / US Navy

U.S. jets struck jihadist positions in northern Iraq on Aug. 8, a potential turning point in a two-month crisis Washington said was threatening to result in genocide and to expose U.S. assets.

President Barack Obama's order for the first air strikes on Iraq since he put an end to U.S. occupation in 2011 came after Islamic State (IS) militants made massive gains on the ground, seizing a dam and forcing a mass exodus of religious minorities.

Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said on Twitter that U.S. forces bombed the jihadists after artillery fire against Kurdish regional government forces defending their capital Arbil.

Two U.S. jets hit a mobile artillery piece, he said. A Kurdish official said the strikes targeted the towns of Gwer and Makhmur, southeast of the autonomous Kurdish region.

The U.S. operation began with air drops of food and water for thousands of people hiding from the Sunni extremist militants in a barren northern mountain range.

Many people who have been cowering in the Sinjar mountains for five days in searing heat and with no supplies are Yazidis, a minority that follows a 4,000-year-old faith.

Obama accused the IS, which calls Yazidis "devil-worshippers," of attempting "the systematic destruction of the entire people, which would constitute genocide." Meanwhile, the U.N. said it was "urgently preparing a humanitarian corridor."        

Panic had begun to grip Arbil after IS thrust into the Nineveh plains separating the city from the main jihadist of Mosul and Obama's decision was welcomed there.

"We were very nervous these past few days. Daash (Islamic State) is powerful and well-equipped," said Karwan Ahmed, 27, a taxi driver. "This is good news."       

The Kurdish peshmerga, short of ammunition and stretched thin along a huge front, have been forced to retreat in the face of brazen assaults by the jihadists.

Their withdrawal from Iraq's Christian heartland on Aug. 6 and 7 sparked a mass exodus and spurred Western powers into action.

Obama's announcement came after an emergency UN Security Council meeting called by France, which also offered to support forces battling the jihadists and contribute to the relief effort.

Chaldean Patriarch Louis Sako said Iraq's largest Christian town of Qaraqosh was emptied of its population on Thursday and estimated the number of Christians forced from their homes at 100,000.

The capture of Mosul dam was another setback for the peshmerga who had been defending it and gave jihadists a power of life and death over a huge swathe of land. A Kurdish and a local official said jihadists took it over on Aug. 7 and warned that any "unscientific manipulation" could have disastrous consequences.

A 2007 letter to the Iraqi government based on a U.S. assessment had warned that "catastrophic failure of Mosul dam would result in flooding along the Tigris river all the way to Baghdad." While IS has weaponised dams before, Mosul dam provides water and electricity to its main stronghold and is crucial to its own state-building efforts.

In Mosul, the country's second city, identical sermons were delivered in all mosques Aug. 8, residents said, with worshippers asked to swear obedience to the "caliph", Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

US strikes may extend: Iraqi army chief

Obama said the strikes would be limited and it remained unclear how much of a game-changer they would be on the ground. Iraq's military chief of staff told AFP he expected to see his forces and the peshmerga reclaim large tracts of land "in the coming hours."

He said he thought the U.S. air strikes would extend to other towns controlled by IS but he did not say which ones. The jihadists control towns west, south and north of Baghdad.

There has been daily fighting on several fronts for two months and as the conflict escalated, the US banned its civilian airliners from overflying Iraq, Britain asked its nationals in parts of Kurdistan to leave and global stock markets were unsettled.

Obama came to office determined to end U.S. military involvement in Iraq, and in his first term oversaw the withdrawal of the huge ground force deployed there since the 2003 American-led invasion.

But the capture of huge swathes of land by jihadists, who in late June proclaimed a "caliphate" straddling Syria and Iraq, has brought a country already rife with sectarian tension closer to collapse. Many people in Baghdad were sceptical of Obama's motives.

"He did nothing for three years but something happened to the Kurds and the Christians and he started talking about terrorism," said Rashaad Khodhr Abbas, a retired civil servant. "Where were you all this time, Obama?"       

IS has enjoyed a spectacular run of military successes in Iraq, but the group also scored a key victory in Syria, with the capture overnight of a key army base in Raqa province.

Observers say one of the main obstacles to coordinated action by all of IS's Iraqi foes is Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, accused by many of having institutionalised sectarianism in recent years. The United States, the Shiite religious leadership, powerful neighbour Iran and even much of his own party have all pulled their support but Maliki has dug his heels in.