US air strikes help free minority from Isis siege
Besieged Iraqi town relieved by combined military operation.
Forces loyal to Iraq’s Government have broken the two-month siege of a town where thousands of residents, mostly from the Shia Turkmen minority, have been trapped with dwindling food and water supplies.
Iraqi army troops, Kurdish fighters and Shia militiamen fought their way into the Shia Turkmen town of Amerli, with help from American air strikes, to push back Islamic State forces that had surrounded them.
Britain was among a number of countries that dropped relief supplies to the town.
The breakthrough, which is the biggest success for the Iraqi Government since Isis began its advance through the country, came two days after United States President Barack Obama authorised the first expansion of American air strikes outside Iraq’s far north.
That decision came after an international outcry about the plight of Amerli, whose residents warned they were at risk of being massacred because of their Shia faith and resistance to Islamic State.
Their plight was compared to that of the Yazidi minority where the US intervened to save thousands who fled in the face of a militant assault, taking refuge on a remote mountain.
The operation to save Amerli began on Saturday with American and Iraqi air strikes on Islamic State positions outside the town in eastern Diyala province.
‘‘It is a very important success,’’ Lieutenant General Qassem Atta, Iraq’s chief security spokesman, said on state television, adding that there was still fighting in the area.
The speed with which the siege was broken may increase pressure on the US to become more involved in the battles against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
However, the Iraqi Government’s reliance on thousands of Shia militiamen involved in the operation will alarm those concerned that the US may be regarded as acting as the air force for a Shia-dominated government that has systematically oppressed Iraqi Sunnis, stoking the current conflict.
There are also concerns about the US working with, and entrenching, armed partisans with a recent history of brutal sectarian killings.
Many of those involved in the Amerli operation have been implicated in human rights violations, including killing and torturing Sunnis.
The US said it had carried out three air strikes in the Amerli area, expanding its air campaign outside the far north for the first time.
Meanwhile, Australian, British, French and US aircraft dropped relief supplies.
Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, cautioned that aid drops and air strikes ‘‘will be limited in their scope and duration as necessary to address this emerging humanitarian crisis and protect the civilians trapped in Amerli’’.
The operation came as the White House considers what, if any, action to take against Islamic State in Syria.
Senior military officials have said the group cannot be defeated in Iraq without action there.
Iraqi security forces and Shi’ite volunteers react yesterday after breaking a two-month siege of Amerli by the Islamic State extremist group. The mayor of Amerli said the troops backed by the militias defeated the Isis to the east of the town while fighting continued to the north.