DHAKA: US fighter jets and drones repeatedly bombed Sunni Islamic extremists in northern Iraq on Friday, targeting what officials described as ISIS artillery units and convoys advancing on the Kurdish regional capital of Irbil.
The airstrikes ramped up America's involvement in Iraq where Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which calls itself the Islamic State, is seizing control of towns and key infrastructure in an advance that has forced hundreds of thousands to run for their lives.
The critical Mosul Dam is now in the hands of ISIS fighters, authorities said, while 150 hundred miles to the east tens of thousands of Iraq's minority Yazidis were trapped on a mountain by ISIS fighters below who vowed to kill them.
News of the second round of U.S. airstrikes came just after the governor of Irbil that ISIS may be as close as 30 kilometers (just over 18 miles) from the city of more than a million people.
The airstrikes began just hours after President Barack Obama authorized "targeted airstrikes," saying in a televised address late Thursday that the United States had an obligation to protect its personnel in Iraq and prevent a potential genocide of minority groups by ISIS.
Obama said there will be no buildup of U.S. combat troops in Iraq. "As commander in chief, I will not allow the United States to be dragged into fighting another war in Iraq," the President said.
Cleric calls for unity
Meanwhile, Iraq's senior Shia cleric Ayatollah Ali Sistani has called on Iraqis to unite to confront the threat from the Islamic State.
"All Iraqis should unify ranks and intensify efforts in the face of this big danger that threatens their present and future," said Sistani.
In what will be interpreted as a criticism of the Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, he also said those clinging to their positions were making a grave mistake.
The US airstrikes and humanitarian air drops reflect the deepest engagement by Washington in Iraq since US troops withdrew in late 2011, after nearly a decade of war.
Source: CNN, Al Jazeera
BDST: 1041 HRS, AGU 09, 2014
