US planes strike militants, drop aid near ethnic Turkmen town

BAGHDAD/WASHINGTON - Reuters

A child cries in a military helicopter after being evacuated by Iraqi forces from Amerli, north of Baghdad Aug. 29. REUTERS Photo

The United States carried out air strikes on Aug. 30 against Islamic State fighters near the besieged Turkmen town of Amerli in northern Iraq and airdropped humanitarian aid to civilians trapped there, the Pentagon said.

President Barack Obama authorized the new military action, broadening U.S. operations in Iraq amid an international outcry over the threat to Amerli's mostly Shiite population.

Aid was delivered by U.S. aircraft as well as planes from Britain, France and Australia, signaling headway in Obama's efforts to draw allies into the fight against Islamic State.

Iraqi army and Kurdish forces closed in on Islamic State fighters on Aug. 30 in a push to break the Sunni militants' siege of Amerli, which has been surrounded by the militants for more than two months.

Armed residents of Amerli have managed to fend off attacks by the Islamic State 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," Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said, using an alternative name for Islamic State.

"In conjunction with this airdrop, U.S. 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 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 Islamic State militants on Sinjar mountain in northern Iraq.

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

Earlier on Aug. 30, 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 km from the town, while those approaching from the north were just three 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 Aug. 30, the Pentagon said U.S. warplanes and armed drones had carried out five air strikes on Islamic State fighters near Iraq's largest dam, the latest in a series of attacks in support of Iraqi and Kurdish forces.

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

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

Islamic State 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 swaths 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 Islamic State.