Signalling the start of expanded air strikes that President Barack Obama promised in the new strategy he unveiled last week, US military aircraft have struck targets near Baghdad —the first time that they have carried the aerial campaign so close to the Iraqi capital.
The airstrikes carried out on Monday destroyed an ISIS fighting position firing on Iraqi Security Guards southwest of Baghdad, about 35 km from the city. The operation also resulted in the destruction of six ISIS vehicles near Sinjar.
“The airstrike 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 offence, as outlined in the President’s speech last Wednesday,” said the US Central Command, which has conducted 162 air strikes since it started air campaign early last month.
The earlier attacks have mostly focused on the northern areas of Iraq in support of Kurdish forces and to help out the thousands of Yezidi minorities fleeing from the threatening Islamic State militants. The Obama administration is still to finalise when it would launch airstrikes in ISIS strongholds in Syria, but senior officials have already warned the Bashar al-Assad regime that the US would hit back if it directed its air defences to go after American aircraft.
While the Assad regime will immensely benefit from any US offensive against ISIS, it has opposed any American action without its approval and coordination — something US officials have broadly rejected, given Washington’s stout opposition to Assad’s continuance in power.
Obama has in fact sought Congressional authorisation to train and arm moderate Syrian rebel groups that are waging their fight against Assad even as they battle ISIS. US military chief Gen Martin Demspey, meanwhile, told a Senate panel on Tuesday that he would recommend having US advisers fight with Iraqi troops against ISIS if the situation so required — a position contrary to Obama’s assertions that the US would not deploy troops for any combat duty in this operation.
“To be clear, if we reach the point where I believe our advisers should accompany Iraqi troops on attacks against specific ISIl targets, I will recommend that to the President,” said Dempsey, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, during a testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel told the same panel that the fight against ISIS “will not be an easy or brief effort”. “We are at war with ISIl, as we are with al-Qaeda. But destroying ISIl will require more than military efforts alone. It will require political progress in the region, and effective partners on the ground in Iraq and Syria,” he said.