Canadian jets help destroy Islamic State bunkers
Two Canadian fighter jets joined aircraft from other allied forces in Iraq Wednesday in an assault on a complex of bunkers and tunnels that was uncovered by chance in a previous American strike.
The bunkers were found when Islamic State fighters were seen withdrawing to the area, between the Kurdish-held city of Kirkuk and Islamic State-held Mosul, in the midst of a concerted attack by Kurdish peshmerga and Iraqi government forces across the north and east.
An American aircraft struck an Islamic State vehicle and blew a hole in the ground, revealing what appeared to be a large bunker complex underneath.
Drones and other surveillance planes were sent to scout out what lay in the hole, before a joint air force was called in to destroy it. The Canadian jets dropped two 907-kilogram bombs.
“Given the significance of the target, and the obstacle it posed to further peshmerga advances, aircraft from seven coalition nations conducted a comprehensive and closely co-ordinated attack on the complex,” a British Ministry of Defence statement said.
The air attack was part of an advance across Iraq that pushed back Islamic State forces on several fronts for the first time.
Earlier this week, Iraqi army soldiers were seen entering Iraq’s biggest oil refinery at Beiji, north of Baghdad. It had been under siege for months with Iraqi troops staving off fierce Islamic State attacks from the town nearby, which the jihadists took in June. The relief of the siege was greeted with joy in Baghdad.
On Wednesday, Kurdish forces, in some cases working alongside Iraqi troops, pushed forward on the Kirkuk-Mosul front and in the east of the country near the Iranian border. They claimed to have retaken both Jalula, a mixed Kurdish-Arab town where control has swung back and forth for five months, and the nearby town of Saadiya, which has been an Islamic State stronghold and a launching point for assaults across Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad.
Military sources said Wednesday’s American air strike, which caused smoke to billow from holes more than 20 or 30 yards away, suggesting to intelligence analysts there was a much larger complex underground. The US-led military coalition has been launching air strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria since early August.
Although the discovery of the tunnels may be regarded as a success, it confirms the fears of many military analysts that although the strikes have hindered the mobility of Islamic State forces, they will have encouraged them to devise new means to carry out attacks.
One military source said the discovery of the hidden position may mean Islamic State forces have begun to dig in to avoid coalition planes.