War on terror

U.S. Soldiers Fight Islamic State in Iraq, Kurds Advance

By Zainab Fattah and Aziz Alwan  Dec 21, 2014 3:56 AM GMT+0300  

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Photographer: Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images

President Barack Obama authorized air strikes against the al-Qaeda breakaway group in... Read More

U.S. soldiers clashed with Islamic State militants, helping the Iraqi army repel attacks against the town of al-Baghdadi in the western Anbar province, Al Jazeera TV reported, as Kurdish forces advanced in the north.

The U.S. troops were from al-Assad military base, the biggest in Anbar, First Lieutenant Muneer al-Qoud from the Iraqi police said by phone. Meanwhile, a U.S. senior military official said there are no U.S. ground troops fighting in Iraq, though forces can engage in self-defense if required.

The clashes may mark the first time U.S. ground forces have engaged Islamic State militants since President Barack Obama authorized air strikes against the al-Qaeda breakaway group in August. A ground conflict would signal a policy shift for Obama, who made pulling the U.S. out of Iraq the centerpiece of his first presidential campaign and oversaw the withdrawal of combat forces from the country in 2011.

The senior military official said the U.S. mission in Iraq is to prepare and support the country in fighting Islamic State forces, and no engagement with militant forces was being tracked.

Kurdish forces kept up pressure in the north of Iraq by retaking the southern part of the Sinjar Mountains, freeing about 1,500 trapped families from the Yazidi religious minority, an Iraqi official said.

Air Strikes

The Peshmerga, as the Kurdish fighters are known, are still battling Islamic State near Sinjar city. They’re being aided by air strikes and intelligence from U.S.-led alliance forces, Noureddin Qablan, deputy chief of the Nineveh provincial council, said by phone.

Kurdish troops advanced in the contested northern Syrian town of Kobani after heavy clashes with Islamic State, the Associated Press reported.

American troops are protecting U.S. facilities and assisting the Iraqi military in Baghdad and Kurdish fighters in Erbil in the north. Obama has approved almost doubling the number of military advisers, trainers and support personnel in the country.

Islamic State fighters hold much of northern Iraq after ousting government forces from Mosul in June. The group has swept over large swaths of Syria and Iraq and declared a Muslim caliphate in areas under its control. Human rights organizations have said the militants have carried out mass killings of captured Iraqi Shiite troops, beheaded religious minorities and forced women into sexual slavery.

The siege of thousands of Yazidis was cited as the main reason prompting U.S. air strikes in August. U.S. planes started by dropping food and water to the trapped people, who fled as Islamic State advanced and took over large parts of Iraq and Syria.

Read more at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-20/u-s-troops-fight-islamic-state-in-western-iraq-al-jazeera-says.html