20,000 civilian refugees flee, US pounds IS with fresh airstrikes
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UNITED States warplanes and drones pummeled Islamic State militants near Arbil in a fresh wave of airstrikes yesterday, destroying armed trucks and a mortar position, the US military confirmed.
US Central Command said five strikes had been carried out when aircraft struck and destroyed an armed vehicle firing on Kurdish forces outside Arbil in northern Iraq.
Shortly after the strike, US forces located another IS armed truck moving away from the area and destroyed it, the Central Command said.
In another attack, US aircraft struck and destroyed an IS mortar position and damaged a nearby truck.
Two more IS armed vehicles were hit in additional strikes before all US aircraft exited the area safely, the military said.
The attacks mark the third day of airstrikes launched by the United States in an effort to halt the advance of Islamic militants who are threatening Arbil, the capital of the Iraqi Kurdish region.
President Barack Obama authorized the strikes on Thursday to help break the siege of Mount Sinjar, where thousands of civilian refugees from the Yazidi religious minority had been trapped.
A Yazidi lawmaker said yesterday at least 20,000 had managed to flee the siege with the help of Kurdish troops and cross into Kurdistan via Syria.
Lawmaker Vian Dakhil had warned on Saturday that they would not survive much longer without food and water.
“20,000 to 30,000 have managed to flee Mount Sinjar but there are still thousands on the mountain,” Dakhil said. “The passage isn’t 100 percent safe. There is still a risk.”
An official from the Kurdish regional government in charge of the Fishkhabur crossing point between Syria and Iraq said 30,000 had crossed.
Foreign aid groups operating in the region confirmed several thousand survivors of the Mount Sinjar siege had transited through Syria and crossed back into Iraq.
US and Iraqi cargo planes have been air dropping food and water over Mount Sinjar, a barren 60-kilometer ridge that local legend holds as the final resting place of Noah’s Ark. Britain joined the effort on Saturday with its first air drop of food and water.
At pains to assure war-weary Americans he was not being dragged into a new Iraqi quagmire, President Obama put the onus on Iraqi politicians to form an inclusive government and turn the tide on jihadist expansion which has brought Iraq closer than ever to breakup.
His comments were yet another nudge for Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to step aside and allow for a consensus government by abandoning what looks like an increasingly desperate bid to seek a third term.
Obama did not give a timetable for the US military intervention but said on Saturday that Iraq’s problems would not be solved in weeks. “This is going to be a long-term project,” he said.
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