The US President gave no timetable for the first US operation in Iraq since the last American troops withdrew three years ago and put the onus on Iraqi politicians to form an inclusive government and turn the tide on jihadist expansion.
US forces hit out on the campaign’s second day to protect members of the Yazidi minority, many of whom have been stranded on Mount Sinjar since they fled Islamic State attacks on their homes a week ago.
US forces “successfully (conducted) four air strikes to defend Yazidi civilians being indiscriminately attacked” near Sinjar, the United States Central Command, which covers the Middle East, said in a statement.
In the first strike, “a mix of US fighters and remotely piloted aircraft struck one of two ISIL armoured personnel carriers firing on Yazidi civilians near Sinjar,” the statement said.
After following the remaining vehicle, a second pair of strikes, around 20 minutes later, hit two more armoured personnel carriers and an armed truck.
The fourth struck another armoured personnel carrier also in the Sinjar area.
US and Iraqi aircraft have also sent planes to deliver food and water to the thousands of people, many of them Yazidi civilians, stranded on the mountain.
The third US airdrop, announced by Centcom late yesterday, sent water and more than 16,000 packaged meals to the besieged civilians.
“The United States can’t just look away. That’s not who we are. We’re Americans. We act. We lead. And that’s what we’re going to do on that mountain,” Obama said.
France and Britain announced that aid consignments of their own were imminent and Australia has been talking to the US about possible participation in humanitarian airdrops.
Two Royal Air Force (RAF) C-130 transport planes took off from Britain carrying reusable filtration containers filled with clean water, tents, tarpaulins and solar lights that can also recharge mobile phones.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius was expected in Baghdad and the Iraqi Kurdish city of Arbil later today for talks with his Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari and Iraqi Kurdish president Massud Barzani.
He will also oversee the delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians who have fled the advance of the Islamist fighters.
Yazidi MP Vian Dakhil, whose poignant appeal in parliament this week made her the public voice of her community, said time was running out.
“We have one or two days left to help these people. After that they will start dying en masse,” she said.
The Yazidis, who worship a figure associated with the devil by many Muslims, are a small and closed community, one of Iraq’s most vulnerable minorities.
After a first day of US air raids on fighters who had moved within striking distance of Kurdistan, a top official in the autonomous region said the time had come for a fightback but there was no immediate sign that was happening.
Obama said he had authorised the strikes in Iraq to protect US personnel serving there.
“And, if necessary, that’s what we will continue to do,” he said.
Federal and Kurdish officials, who had been at loggerheads since IS fighters launched their an offensive exactly two months ago that has brought Iraq to the brink of partition, have said they were now working together and with US advisers.
But it remained unclear how much longer and how much deeper inside Iraq US warplanes would intervene and Obama stressed the real game-changer would be the much-delayed formation of an inclusive government.
Until then, he said, “it is very hard to get a unified effort by Iraqis against” IS.
Many Iraqis see Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki as partly responsible for the conflict by institutionalising sectarianism.
Washington, Tehran, the Shiite religious leadership and much of his own party have pulled their support but he has dug his heels in and apparently not yet given up on seeking a third term.
Up to 100,000 Christians were forced to flee from their homes in a matter of hours on Thursday, completely emptying the country’s largest Christian city Qaraqosh of its population.
Among the hundreds of thousands of people who fled their homes in northern Iraq were several other minorities such as the Shabak and Turkmen Shiites.
UNESCO chief Irina Bokova called it an “emerging cultural cleansing”.
“The US should strike Sinjar, even if there are civilian casualties. It’s better than letting everyone die,” Vian Dakhil said.
Obama said he was confident the US could prevent IS fighters “from going up the mountain and slaughtering the people who are there” but added the next step of creating a safe passage was “logistically complicated”.
The International Rescue Committee is providing emergency care to around 4000 people who crossed safely into neighbouring Syria.
-AFP
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