Obama justifies air strikes on Islamic State militants
KHAZER CAMP, Iraq — President Obama justified the U.S. military’s return to fighting in Iraq on Saturday by saying America must act now to prevent genocide, protect its diplomats and provide humanitarian aid to refugees trapped by Islamic State militants on a mountain ridge near the Syrian border.
“This is going to be a longterm project” that won’t end and can’t succeed unless Iraqis form an inclusive government in Baghdad capable of keeping the country from breaking apart, Obama said at the White House.
U.S. planes and drones launched four air strikes on Islamic State forces Saturday as they fired indiscriminately on Yazidi civilians taking shelter in the Sinjar mountains, U.S. Central Command said. The strikes, which were spread out during the day, destroyed armored carriers and a truck, according to the Central Command statement. It was the third round of air strikes against Islamic State forces by the U.S. military since they were authorized by Obama on Thursday.
The military support also has been helping clear the way for aid flights to drop food and water to thousands of starving refugees in the Sinjar area.
But the help comes too late for many of the religious minorities targeted for elimination by the Islamic State group, which swept past U.S.-trained and -equipped Iraqi government forces in recent weeks and now controls much of Iraq.
A delayed response by the Shiite-led government in Baghdad left Kurdish forces struggling to contain the Sunni extremists’ advances. With nowhere to go but uphill, Kurdish-speaking Yazidi refugees sought shelter in the mile-high Sinjar mountains.
U.S., Iraqi and British cargo planes dropped tons of food, water, tents and other equipment to the refugees Friday and Saturday.
But at least 56 children have died of dehydration in the mountains, UNICEF’s spokesman in Iraq, Karim Elkorany, said Saturday.
British officials estimated Saturday that 50,000 to 150,000 people could be trapped on the mountain.
Juan Mohammed, a local government spokesman in the Syrian city of Qamishli, said that more than 20,000 starving Yazidis are fleeing across the border, braving gunfire through a tenuous “safe passage” that Kurdish peshmerga forces are trying to protect.
Obama was adamant Saturday that that U.S. troops can’t bring peace to Iraq.
“We can conduct air strikes, but ultimately there’s not going to be an American military solution to this problem. There’s going to have to be an Iraqi solution that America and other countries and allies support,” he said.