Senior officials said U.S.
warplanes sent four air strikes against Islamic State militants threatening
western Iraq's Haditha Dam early on Sunday, broadening Washington's campaign
against the fighters.
According to the leader of a
pro-Iraqi government paramilitary force in the west said the strikes washed out
an Islamic State patrol attempting an attack toward the dam which is considered
as the country's second biggest hydroelectric facility which also supplies millions
with water.
The US strikes were to protect
the Iraqi forces and Sunni tribesmen in control of the dam.
An official said that "at
the request of the Iraqi government and in keeping with our mission to protect
US personnel and facilities, US military planes have begun striking Isil
terrorists near the Haditha dam."
Governor of Anbar has reportedly
been lightly wounded in fighting in the province, the army has said.
They had been carried out at the
request of the Iraqi government, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said.
“If that dam would fall into
ISIL’s (Islamic State's) hands or if that dam would be destroyed, the damage
that that would cause would be very significant and it would put a significant,
additional and big risk into the mix in Iraq,” Hagel told the reporters.
Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshiyar
Zebari said Islamic State was trying to control strategic assets, including
dams across Iraq.
Reportedly, militants held the control
of a dam outside Falluja in April was a part of their targeted number of dams
in their offensive, capturing the facility at Fallujah.
It abandoned that dam, and then
they also took the largest dam, at Mosul, but US air strikes helped force them
out.
0 comments: