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U.S. Launches New Airstrikes on ISIS to Protect Dam in Iraq U.S. Launches New Airstrikes on ISIS to Protect Dam in Iraq
(about 17 hours later)
TBILISI, Georgia — The United States launched a new series of airstrikes against Sunni fighters in Iraq late Saturday in what Defense Department officials described as a mission to stop militants from seizing an important dam on the Euphrates River and prevent the possibility of floodwaters being unleashed toward the capital, Baghdad. TBILISI, Georgia — In launching a fresh series of airstrikes against Sunni fighters in Iraq over the weekend, the Defense Department described a mission to stop militants from seizing an important dam on the Euphrates River and prevent them from unleashing floodwaters toward the capital, Baghdad.
The attacks were aimed at militant fighters of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria as they were moving toward the Haditha Dam, officials said. The operation represented another expansion of the limited goals that President Obama set out when he announced last month that he had authorized airstrikes in Iraq. But the strikes on Sunni militant positions near the Haditha Dam deepen the American military engagement in Iraq as the United States seeks to roll back advances of the extremist group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
Administration officials nonetheless stressed that the strikes around the Haditha Dam — about 175 miles from Baghdad, in Anbar Province — were within the constraints of what Mr. Obama initially characterized as a limited campaign to break the ISIS siege of the minority Yazidi population stranded on Mount Sinjar, as well as to protect American citizens, official personnel and facilities in Erbil, the Kurdish capital, and Baghdad. Near the dam, American warplanes pounded ISIS armored vehicles and antiaircraft artillery late Saturday and early Sunday while Iraqi ground troops attacked villages held by ISIS fighters. It was exactly the kind of operation that President Obama described at a news conference in Wales on Friday when he talked about how the United States and its allies could fight ISIS: Use American warplanes to drop bombs while coordinating with local ground troops to reclaim and hold territory.
“I think the strikes the United States took are very much in line with what President Obama said were the guiding principles of military action in Iraq,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said during a news conference while in Tbilisi, Georgia, for talks. Mr. Hagel said that if ISIS fighters seized or destroyed the dam, “the damage that would cause would be very significant and it would put a significant, additional and big risk into the mix in Iraq.” Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said in a statement, “We conducted these strikes to prevent terrorists from further threatening the security of the dam.” The strikes, the statement said, came “under authority to protect U.S. personnel and facilities, support humanitarian efforts and support Iraqi forces that are acting in furtherance of these objectives.”
In a statement, Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said, “We conducted these strikes to prevent terrorists from further threatening the security of the dam.” The strikes, Admiral Kirby said, “were conducted under authority to protect U.S. personnel and facilities, support humanitarian efforts, and support Iraqi forces that are acting in furtherance of these objectives.” The strikes near the Haditha Dam followed a pattern established in recent days of air campaigns aided by locals, including Shiite militiamen who fought against United States forces during the American occupation of Iraq.
Across the quickly vanishing border between Syria and Iraq, the Syrian government also has increased airstrikes on ISIS in recent months after it took over government military outposts in the northeastern province of Raqqa in a series of newly assertive attacks. Raids by Syrian warplanes in Raqqa on Saturday killed at least 25 people, most of them civilians crowding into a bakery, as government forces continued air attacks on territory controlled by ISIS. Two weeks ago, the American military carried out airstrikes that allowed Iraqi and Kurdish forces to reclaim the Mosul Dam, in northern Iraq, which had fallen into ISIS hands. It has also struck the group’s fighters besieging the Turkmen city of Amerli.
In Iraq, soldiers and officers in the area around the Haditha Dam said that United States warplanes carried out airstrikes on several towns beginning around 11 p.m. on Saturday, striking what were described as ISIS positions in the towns of Rawa and Ana, as well as in Barwana, which is about nine miles from the dam. ISIS had not made it to the Haditha Dam, but had been advancing for several weeks, American officials said. That worried Iraqi officials, who maintained that the Haditha Dam was as important as the Mosul Dam because it is closer to Baghdad.
The strikes on Rawa and Ana, two towns near a highway leading into Syria, could disrupt ISIS supply lines in Iraq. Soldiers fighting in Barwana said that the American airstrikes continued on Sunday morning, striking what they described as houses where ISIS fighters were gathering. At the same time, Iraqi military forces, including Special Forces units, were attacking the town from two sides with artillery and mortar fire, Iraqi officers said. Obama administration officials continued to insist, even after American warplanes bombed ISIS positions near several villages close to Haditha, that the United States had not expanded the mission beyond the limited goals set out by the president a month ago when he authorized airstrikes. At the time, Mr. Obama characterized the Iraq campaign as a limited one to break the ISIS siege of the minority Yazidi population stranded on Mount Sinjar in the north, and to protect American citizens, official personnel and facilities in Erbil, the Kurdish capital, and in Baghdad.
Mr. Hagel said that the United States was working closely with Iraqi military units on the Haditha Dam operation. “The Iraqi government asked for those strikes, and it was Iraqi security forces” who carried out the ground portion of the assault, he said. The Haditha Dam is 175 miles from Baghdad, 220 miles from Erbil and 270 miles from Mount Sinjar.
The American airstrikes on the Haditha Dam were not the first time the United States has expanded on the initial description of the military mission in Iraq. The American military has carried out airstrikes that allowed Iraqi and Kurdish forces to reclaim the Mosul Dam, which had fallen into ISIS hands, and has struck Sunni militants who had been besieging the Turkmen city of Amerli. “I think the strikes the United States took are very much in line with what President Obama said were the guiding principles of military action in Iraq,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Sunday at a news conference with the Georgian defense minister in Tbilisi. “If that dam would fall into ISIL’s hands,” he said, using another acronym for ISIS, “or if that dam would be destroyed, the damage that would cause would be very significant, and it would put a significant, additional and big risk into the mix in Iraq.”
A significant rupture of the Haditha Dam, officials have said, could send floodwaters through a large number of Iraqi communities and toward the capital, perhaps putting at risk the Baghdad airport, which could threaten Americans in the country. That rationale is similar to the one used when American warplanes bombed the Sunni militants who had taken control of the Mosul Dam. A break of the Haditha Dam, military officials said, could flood Baghdad’s airport and threaten Americans in Iraq. That rationale is similar to the one used when American warplanes bombed ISIS militants who controlled the Mosul Dam. But such a definition gives the White House wide latitude to support Iraqi forces in a sustained military offensive against the group across the country.
It remained unknown whether ISIS, which has pledged to create an Islamic state over parts of Iraq and Syria, would actually breach the dam or instead would attempt to capture the site to guarantee control over electricity to areas it now holds. But citing the mission of protecting American citizens and facilities gives the White House wide latitude to support Iraqi security forces and Kurdish militias in a sustained campaign against ISIS across the country. The battles over the two dams are part of a war for water that ISIS has waged since it swept into Iraq, bent on carving out a caliphate in territory spanning Iraq and Syria. The dams, which control the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, have become a valued asset for both sides.
In the case of the Haditha Dam, the Sunni militants had not made it to the structure but had been advancing for several weeks, American officials said, in a move that worried Iraqi officials who maintained that the Haditha Dam was as important as the Mosul Dam because it is closer to Baghdad. One of the American officials who described the mission spoke from Georgia, where Mr. Hagel was traveling and receiving reports from commanders. The towns struck by the United States over the weekend, in Anbar Province, were captured by ISIS extremists in late June, shortly after they stormed the northern city of Mosul. The territory the militants held — which included the towns of Qaim, Rawa, Ana and Barwana — gave ISIS a supply route to Syria along a strategic highway, and put its fighters within reach of the Haditha Dam.
Georgia’s defense minister, Irakli Alasania, said his country would back the American efforts against ISIS. “We fully support what the United States is doing to relegate these barbarians,” Mr. Alasania said. Georgia, he suggested, might be willing to help train Iraqi security forces. The weekend offensive included Sunni fighters from the Al-Jaghaifa and Albu Mahal tribes, and Iraqi units including special forces and units called up from the southern town of Hilla, according to Iraqi soldiers and officers. Using tanks, artillery and mortar fire, they concentrated their attack on ISIS fighters in Barwana, seven miles south of the dam.
The battles over the two Iraqi dams are part of a larger water war that has been underway since ISIS swept into Iraq bent on carving out a caliphate in Iraq and Syria. The dams that control the Tigris and the Euphrates have become a valued asset for both sides. Approaching Barwana from the north and south, engineering units worked to disarm improvised explosive devices and booby traps, which have become a hallmark of the militants. One soldier, fighting in an area across the Euphrates from Barwana, described “heavy crossfire” as the fighting gained in intensity early Sunday.
But the advances by ISIS on both sides of the border have complicated efforts to battle the militants. Critics of the Syrian government, and increasingly some supporters, complain that President Bashar al-Assad’s forces allowed the foreign-led ISIS to gain strength and establish its proto-state over the past year, focusing the army’s attacks more on Syrian-led militant groups whose main aim is to oust Mr. Assad. ISIS has a broader goal: to remake the Middle East and establish an Islamic caliphate. At one point, a mortar round injured several senior Iraqi officials, including the governor of Anbar Province, Ahmed al-Dulaimi, and the mayor of Haditha. Late Sunday, the militants remained in the town and were putting up fierce resistance from the neighborhood of Al-Khafsa, officers said.
Even so, Iraqi military officials sounded triumphant. “We have tried many times to liberate Barwana but have failed,” said a senior military officer fighting in the town on Sunday. “We would have failed again without the U.S. strikes.”
The militants, who had also come under attack from Iraqi warplanes, retained control of Rana, Awa and the border town of Qaim, reflecting the resilience and strength of a force that has stockpiled weapons and matériel as ISIS has routed military units, militias and rival insurgent groups.
A newly released field report by a private firm that investigates arms trafficking documented small arms and rockets captured from ISIS that appeared to have been provided to other combatants by Saudi Arabia and the United States.
The findings by the firm, Conflict Armament Research in England, provided a new level of detail of ISIS’ apparent capture and diversion of military equipment sent into the region by foreign governments, which have often found the irregular forces and local government troops they have sponsored to be unreliable and prone to corruption, defection or defeat.
Among the former ISIS weapons that the firm examined were M16 and M4 rifles stamped “Property of U.S. Govt.” Such weapons are also common in the hands of irregular Shiite forces in Iraq, where the United States provided hundreds of thousands of small arms to local and state forces during its long occupation.
The weapons were often provided hastily or with scant accountability. Many of Iraq’s military and police forces have since been defeated by ISIS or have abandoned their bases and posts, yielding equipment provided by American taxpayers and exposing weaknesses in the Pentagon’s once-heralded force-building measures.
The firm also found that ISIS had M79 anti-tank rockets from the former Yugoslavia that were identical to M79 rockets provided by Saudi Arabia to rebels in Syria. Many Syrian rebels have said weapons provided to them by foreign supporters have been captured by ISIS or sold or traded to ISIS by corrupt members of the rebel ranks.