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Page added on August 17, 2014
The US Is Now Assisting Kurds In Fighting ISIS With Drones, F-18s
Just over a week ago, Obama announced that the US military intervention in Iraq would be solely under the pretext of “humanitarian intervention” while US troops would be deployed exclusively as “advisers”, and nothing else. 7 days later, the siege on Mount Sinjar is virtually over with the US announcing that “far fewer Iraqi refugees were found on mount Sinjar“, and yet the US finds it difficult to leave: something which the current president crusaded against his predecessor over. And today it was finally confirmed that the latest US airborne assault of Iraq (so far without a land invasion force) has just suffered terminal mission creep, when US airstrikes, by both F-18s and drones, were used not to protect and safeguard the besieged refuges but to aid Kuridsh forces in retaking the critical Mosul dam from ISIS militants who took control of the critical piece of infrastructure in early August.
BBC reports that the operation to recapture the country’s largest dam began early on Saturday with raids by F-18 fighters and drones, US officials said.
Kurdish Peshmerga fighters have shelled militants’ positions, and there is an unconfirmed report of a ground attack. Supposedly no US troops are involved in the ground attack, although with the level of lies lobbed around by everyone, it is almost assured that US marined are currently engaged in combat with ISIS.
US military officials told NBC News the decision to try to retake the dam came after intelligence showed IS militants “were not yet at a point where they could blow up the installation”.
A Kurdish commander, Major General Abdelrahman Korini, told AFP that the Peshmerga had captured the eastern side of the dam and were “still advancing”.
Rudaw, a Kurdish news website, said the air strikes appeared to be the “heaviest US bombing of militant positions since the start of air strikes” against IS last week. At least 11 IS fighters were killed by the air strikes, sources in Mosul told BBC News.
The dam, captured by IS on 7 August, is of huge strategic significance in terms of water and power resources. Located on the River Tigris about 50km (30 miles) upstream from the city of Mosul, it controls the water and power supply to a large surrounding area in northern Iraq.
The BBC’s Jim Muir in Irbil says there are fears the dam is structurally dubious and many have warned that it could unleash a catastrophic flood if it was breached.
One wonders if it is extensive military planning that has green-lighted an operation as having “no risk” of dam breach as F-18s are launching missiles at militants located at or near the dam wall.
For the latest update on the combat theater we go to the usual source: the Institute for the Study of War with its most updated Iraq situation plan:
So now that Obama is the latest president to suddenly find it next to impossible to extricate himself from a “land war in Asia” and mission creep for the indefinite future virtually assured, one wonders just what humanitarian excuses will be used when the first US pilot (let alone marine) is brought back home in a bodybag, and less relevantly, if the Nobel peace prize-awarding committee will suddenly have an epiphany and finally demand its trophy back.
8 Comments on "The US Is Now Assisting Kurds In Fighting ISIS With Drones, F-18s"
J-Gav on Sun, 17th Aug 2014 4:17 pm
Chucking a spanner in the works of ISIS may be one of the more defensible US military operations of the last 5 decades – if it works. Then again, the US has not been known for ‘winning’ much of anything over that time span. More like creating plenty more jihadis. We’ll see, but the more territory ISIS ‘takes,’the harder it will be for them to manage it in the near future. They are not making only friends in the region after all and, sooner or later, one way or another, their limits will show through. Which doesn’t necessarily mean that peace and brotherly love will reign supreme …
Plantagenet on Sun, 17th Aug 2014 4:52 pm
Obama was stupid to wait until ISIS took over half of Iraq before taking action. His repeated claims that the US isn’t going to intervene in the war in Iraq are just a pack of lies—as this article shows the US is now an active combatant.
paulo1 on Sun, 17th Aug 2014 6:01 pm
Good for US leaders willing to take on these crazies. I know a lot of soul searching happened before this happened, if anything else. This would be an awful development to see this dam destroyed, let alone allow any more despotic beheadings in the name of Allah.
Good on em. I hope they degrade this nightmare offensive and wind it down soon after.
And no, I did not support the Iraq war and believe it was a mistake. My country, (Canada), did not participate in the Iraq war, either. (Thank you, Jean Chretien). Nevertheless, doing nothing in this instance is downright wrong. I hope it works.
Paulo
bobinget on Sun, 17th Aug 2014 6:39 pm
While the US has been using drones effectively in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iraq is the supreme test.
The entire idea of manned fighter aircraft is coming under question. Like battleships, tanks, nuclear weapons, in asymmetrical warfare, F-18’s at nearly the cost of one WW/2 aircraft carrier each, no longer make sense.
One only wonders, what inhuman weapon comes after this current generation of drones? When will ‘The Islamic State’ or some other bunch of crazies send an armada of tiny, almost undetectable drones loaded with live virus onto US and UK cities? Hundreds of
rust-bucket ships are cut-up each year. It would take but one to ferry that fleet of miniature drones to within
flying distance of US costal cities.
Welcome to the 21st century.
bobinget on Sun, 17th Aug 2014 6:56 pm
As I said in a previous post ISIl is holing the Mosul dam hostage. IS may have already mined the dam and won’t hesitate to blow it if IS believes ensuing confusion will work to advantage. Killing hundreds of thousands of fellow Muslims won’t stop suicide bombers.
There exists dogma in Tea Baggers to arch Marxists.
Destroy EXISTING political and physical infrastructure
‘if needed’ first. Then, rebuild along ridged party lines.
Brace yourselves for mass murder on a grand scale.
Davy on Sun, 17th Aug 2014 8:38 pm
Bob, ISIL will not destroy the dam so long as Mosul is their base of operations. Mosul is the most at risk of the dam failure. If the Kurds and the US succeed swiftly the dam will be made safe. Any explosives will be detected and disarmed. That is my take anyway, but the ISIL are fanatic, radicals, and capable of anything so we will see.
Plantagenet on Sun, 17th Aug 2014 9:14 pm
The claim that ISIS are “crazies” is wrong-headed. ISIS fighters aren’t crazy—they are fundamentalist Muslims.
I know most people are ignorant about things like science and history, but knowing some historical facts does have help explain what is going on now. For 1400 years Islam expanded by armed conquest. Enemies were routinely beheaded and populations were converted to Islam by force. What ISIS is doing in Iraq is nothing new—its just more of what Moslems have always done.
rockman on Sun, 17th Aug 2014 9:24 pm
Bob – Yep…difficult to take out such a dam. OTOH it would take just a very small amount of explosives in the hands of the semi-skilled to take out the turbines. Granted they would eventually be replaced but in the interim a big loss in electrical power.
Air strikes will be useful but eventually it going to take someone’s boots on the ground to take out their boots. I suspects that will mean a lot of dead man boots before it’s over. Then it will boil down to which side is more willing to accept the losses.