American warplanes and drones hit tanks, Humvees, checkpoints and bunkers in airstrikes on Friday targeting ISIS militant extremists, as the U.S.-led coalition expanded to include Britain, Denmark and Belgium.
General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon that the 'targeted' military action that began earlier this week disrupted the militant group's command and control and logistics ability, and had an effect on the group's infrastructure in Syria.
Dempsey said he expected a 'persistent and sustained' campaign against the militant group, which has seized a vast swath of Iraq and Syria.
Denmark, Belgium and Britain all signed on to join the coalition on Friday. The European countries committed to take part only in the Iraq part of the military campaign, leaving the operation in Syria to the United States and five Arab allies who began conducting airstrikes there on Tuesday.
The U.S.-led operation aims to roll back and ultimately crush ISIS, which has carved out a proto-state stretching from Syria's northern border with Turkey to the outskirts of Baghdad. The militants have employed brute force to achieve their goals, massacring captured Syrian and Iraqi troops, terrorizing minorities in both countries and beheading two American journalists and a British aid worker.
'No one should be ducking in this case ... Everyone should contribute.' - Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt
While striking fear into its opponents, the militant group's tactics have also helped galvanize the international community to move against the extremists. France has already joined the U.S.-led effort in Iraq, and is considering expanding its role to Syria as well. The Netherlands, too, has said it would take part in the bombing campaign in Iraq.
'No one should be ducking in this case,' said Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt. 'Everyone should contribute.'
2nd day of airstrikes
The European contingent will join a campaign has already carried out hundreds of airstrikes, the latest of which hit ISIS positions in both Iraq and Syria late Thursday and Friday.
The U.S. Central Command said that airstrikes outside the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk destroyed three ISIS Humvees, disabled two armed vehicles and damaged an armoured truck. More strikes west of Baghdad and near the Syrian border knocked out a guard shack, armed vehicles, a bunker and a checkpoint.
In Syria, the U.S. destroyed four tanks and damaged another outside the city of Deir el-Zour on the Euphrates River.
Those airstrikes marked the second consecutive day that the United States and its Arab allies have taken aim at the militants near the border with Iraq. Coalition planes pounded a dozen makeshift oil-producing facilities in the same area on Thursday, trying to cripple one of the militants' primary sources of cash - black market oil sales that the U.S. says produce up to $2 million a day.
Syrian activists said the American-led air campaign also hit the Tanak oil field as well as the Qouriyeh oil-producing area in Deir el-Zour on Friday. It said air raids also targeted ISIS headquarters in the town of Mayadeen southeast of Deir el-Zour city.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights said the strikes caused an unknown number of casualties. Another activist collective, the Local Coordination Committees, also reported four strikes on Mayadeen that it said were conducted by the U.S. and its allies.
The Observatory reported another apparent coalition air raid on ISIS positions outside the city of Hassakeh in northeastern Syria. Those strikes targeted an oil-production area, as well as vehicles the militants had brought in from Iraq and tried to bury in the ground to protect them, according to Observatory director Rami Abdurrahman.
The U.S. did not have any information on strikes targeting oil facilities, but the military statement mentions raids by American forces only and not those by other coalition partners.
'You can't reduce it to zero'
The Observatory reports that at least 13 civilians have died so far in coalition strikes.
In Washington, Dempsey said the United States and its allies are taking every precaution to limit civilian casualties, but added they are inevitable in any military campaign.
'Of course you know you can't reduce it to zero,' Dempsey told a Pentagon news conference. He said he has received no reports of civilian casualties so far.
Dempsey said U.S. allies participating in the campaign against ISIS are doing just as well their American counterparts in hitting their targets precisely. He attributed the success to two decades of training with other countries and acquiring advanced surveillance and targeting equipment.
In Syria, activists say the militants have cut back the number of gunmen manning checkpoints, apparently fearing more strikes, while there has also been an exodus of civilians from ISIS strongholds.
'Everywhere there are ISIS buildings, the people living around these buildings are leaving.' - Rami Abdurrahman, Syrian Observatory of Human Right
'Everywhere there are ISIS buildings, the people living around these buildings are leaving. They are moving far from ISIS buildings, either to other villages or to other areas in the same cities,' said Abdurrahman. 'This has happened in Raqqa, in Deir el-Zour and in many towns and villages.'
In towns and villages controlled by Syria's mainstream rebel factions, the airstrikes have garnered mixed reactions. Most people appear to condone hitting ISIS, but question why President Bashar Assad's forces - which have killed thousands of people in the civil war - remain untouched.
Syrians are also critical of the U.S. decision to bomb the al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front in the opening salvo. The Nusra Front enjoys a degree of support among many in the opposition because its fighters are on the front lines against Assad.
In several opposition-held areas Friday, residents staged demonstrations condemning the airstrikes, according to activists and videos posted online.
One amateur video posted online shows people in the village of Taftanaz in Idlib province denouncing the airstrikes. One placard in English read: 'What about the regime's terrorism?' Another video shows a similar protest in the village of Iblin. The videos appear genuine and correspond to other reporting by bberitaa.blogspot.com.
190,000 killed in Syrian conflict
The international operation targeting ISIS adds another layer to Syria's civil war, a conflict that has already killed more than 190,000 people since the revolt against Assad began in March 2011.
While overshadowed by the coalition strikes against ISIS, fighting between Syrian government troops and rebels has raged on with its usual ferocity.
Assad's warplanes struck opposition-held towns in several provinces, including Hama in central Syria and Daraa in the south, while in Damascus, government soldiers backed by gunmen from the Lebanese Shiite militant Hezbollah group battled rebels on the edges of the suburb of Jobar, activists said.
ISIS meanwhile continued to press its offensive near the Turkish border against Syrian Kurds, closing in on the border town of Ayn Arab, also known as Kobani. The militants have overrun dozens of villages the area in recent weeks as they look to clear out one of the few remaining pockets of resistance to their rule in northern Syria.
A senior Kurdish fighter overseeing the defense of Kobani, Ismet Sheikh Hassa, said that Islamic State fighters were advancing on the city from three sides Friday and were now launching mortars and rockets into Kobani itself.
He said that Kurdish fighters were outgunned, using old Russian weapons and assault rifles to fend off the attack.
'They have heavy weapons,' including tanks, artillery and machine-guns, Hassa said by telephone. 'The Islamic State is firing mortars and rockets over Kobani randomly. There are numerous civilian causalities.'
Scores of Kurdish activists and fighters were seen removing barbed wire and crossing the Turkish border on Friday to help defend the city. As they crossed the frontier, they could be heard chanting 'Long live Kobani!'
Posted by Unknown on Saturday, September 27, 2014 - Rating: 4.5
0 comments "ISIS hit with US"
Post a Comment