New Offensive UK may join US raids in Iraq
| Warning of genocide, American air strikes come to defence of minorities fleeing Islamist extremists
BRITAIN could join the US in launching military strikes against Islamist extremists in Iraq should the situation descend into genocide, according to UK government sources.
The Sunni militants’ offensive — and their threats to kill religious minorities — has panicked tens of thousands of people and emptied towns that for centuries have been home to Yezidi and Christian communities.
On Friday, US forces began raids against fighters in northern Iraq after US President Barack Obama pledged to intervene to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe.
Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighters, who have beheaded and crucified captives in their drive to eradicate unbelievers, have advanced to within half an hour’s drive of Arbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region and a hub for US oil companies.
They have also seized control of Iraq’s biggest dam, which could allow them to flood cities and cut off vital water and electricity supplies.
The Pentagon said two F/A-18 aircraft from an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf had dropped laser-guided bombs on the fighters’ artillery and other air strikes had targeted mortar positions and a convoy.
Obama authorised the first US air strikes on Iraq since he pulled all troops out in 2011, arguing that action was needed to halt the Islamist advance, protect Americans and safeguard hundreds of thousands of Christians and members of other religious minorities who have fled for their lives.
The US also dropped relief supplies to members of the ancient Yazidi sect, tens of thousands of whom are massed on a desert mountain top seeking shelter from fighters who had ordered them to convert or die.
“Earlier this week, one Iraqi in the area cried to the world ‘There is no one coming to help’,” said Obama in a latenight television address this week.
“Well, today America is coming to help. We can act carefully and responsibly to prevent a potential act of genocide.”
On Friday, the White House said the strikes would last as long as the security situation required.
The ISIS was defiant. A fighter told Reuters by telephone that the US air strikes would have “no impact on us”.
“The planes attack positions they think are strategic, but this is not how we operate. We are
Tens of thousands are massed on a desert mountain top seeking shelter
trained for guerrilla street war,” he said.
“God is with us and our promise is heaven. When we are promised heaven, do you think death will stop us?”
The advance of the Sunni militants, who also control a third of Syria and have fought this past week in Lebanon, has caused alarm across the Middle East and threatens to unravel Iraq, a country divided between Shi’ites, Sunnis and Kurds.
A US official said the Iraqi government had provided a planeload of ammunition to Kurdish fighters in Arbil in what the official called an “unprecedented” act of military co-operation between Baghdad and the Kurds, who have long feuded over land and oil.
The US air strikes prompted renewed calls on jihadi online forums for attacks on the US and oil interests in the Gulf.
In Baghdad, where politicians have been paralysed by infighting while the state falls apart, the top Shi’ite cleric all but demanded that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki quit, a bold intervention that could bring the veteran ruler down.
Sunni fighters from the ISIS, an al-Qaeda offshoot rejected as too extreme by Osama bin Laden’s successors, have swept through northern Iraq since June. Their advance dramatically accelerated in the past week.
Attention has focused on the plight of Yazidis, Christians and other minority groups in northern Iraq, which has been one of the most diverse parts of the Middle East for centuries.
“The stakes for Iraq’s future can also not be clearer,” said US secretary of state John Kerry on Friday.
The ISIS “campaign of terror against the innocent, including the Christian minority, and its grotesque targeted acts of violence show all the warning signs of genocide”, he said.
The Yazidis are ethnic Kurds who practise an ancient faith related to Zoroastrianism. The ISIS considers them to be “devil-worshippers”.
After fighters ordered them to leave, convert or die, most fled their towns and villages to camp out on Sinjar mountain, an arid peak where they believe Noah settled after the biblical flood.
The ISIS fighters have heavy weapons that they seized from Iraqi army troops who abandoned their posts in June. In addition, the fighters are flush with cash looted from banks.
Tens of thousands of Christians fled late this week when the ISIS fighters overran their home town, Qaraqosh.
In Arbil, hundreds of foreign oil workers flooded the airport on Friday as oil companies in Kurdistan withdrew more staff. —