US conducts 23 new airstikes in Iraq, Syria

Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) The United States and allies staged 23 air strikes on Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq on Thursday, the Combined Joint Task Force said on Friday.

A dozen strikes near the Syrian cities of Kobani, Ar Raqqah and Al Hasakah destroyed Islamic State vehicles, buildings and fighting positions and also hit a large Islamic State unit.

Eleven strikes in Iraq targeted Islamic State units, buildings, vehicles, equipment, a shipping container and a weapons cache near the cities of Taji, Al Asad, Fallujah, Baiji, Al Qaim and Mosul.

Islamic State fighters have taken parts of Syria and Iraq in a bloody campaign to establish an Islamic caliphate.

Activist groups, meanwhile, reported strikes on and around Raqqa, the de facto Isis capital. An anti-Isis activist group called Raqqa is Silently Being Slaughtered reported at least 13 coalition strikes and said the Furoussiyeh area and the Division 17 military base were among the targets hit.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees activist collective also confirmed the air raids.

In Iraq, the Combined Joint Task Force said 11 strikes targeted ISIS units, buildings, vehicles, equipment, a shipping container and a weapons cache near the cities of Taji, Asad, Fallujah, Baiji, Qaim and Mosul.

ISIS fighters have taken control of parts of Syria and Iraq in a bloody campaign to establish an Islamic caliphate.

Strikes against ISIS in Iraq began on 8 August and in Syria on 23 September. On 24 December, ISIS captured a Jordanian pilot whose F-16 came down during a coalition mission.

In Iraq’s western Anbar province, more than 300 US troops are posted at a base in the thick of a pitched battle between Iraqi forces, backed by tribal fighters, and well-armed Islamic State militants.

The militants, positioned at a nearby town, have repeatedly hit the base with artillery and rocket fire in recent weeks. Since the middle of December, the US-led military coalition has launched 13 air strikes around the facility.

US troops have suffered no casualties in the attacks. But the violence has underlined the risks to American personnel as they fan out across Iraq as part of the expanding US mission against the Islamic State, even as President Obama has pledged that US operations “will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil.”

In a sign of the risks, military officials said American soldiers have been transported to the Ayn al-Asad base under the cover of night by helicopter — partly to maintain a low profile for the renewed US operation in Iraq but also to protect US personnel amid fierce fighting west of the capital, Baghdad.

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