US confirms airstrikes near Mosul dam, Arbil

WASHINGTON, United States – The US military confirmed it conducted 9 airstrikes Saturday (Sunday, August 17 in Manila) near Arbil and Iraq’s largest dam in an effort to help Kurdish forces retake it from violent extremists.

US Central Command said fighter jets and drones had destroyed or damaged 4 armored personnel carriers, 7 armed vehicles, two Humvees and an armored vehicle.

CENTCOM “conducted these strikes under authority to support humanitarian efforts in Iraq, as well as to protect US personnel and facilities,” it added.

“All aircraft exited the strike areas safely.”

Kurdish forces attacked the Islamic State (ISIS) fighters who wrested the Mosul dam from them a week earlier, a general told Agence France-Presse.

“Kurdish peshmerga, with US air support, have seized control of the eastern side of the dam” complex, Major General Abdulrahman Korini told Agence France-Presse, saying several militants had been killed.

Buoyed by the air strikes US President Barack Obama ordered last week, the peshmerga fighters have tried to claw back the ground they lost since the start of August.

The dam on the Tigris provides electricity to much of the region and is crucial to irrigation in vast farming areas in Nineveh province.

The recapture of Mosul dam would be one of the most significant achievements in a fightback that is also getting international material support.

The strikes took place just a day after ISIS militants carried out a “massacre” of dozens of villagers. – Rappler.com