BAGHDAD — The United States on Sunday expanded its air war against Islamic extremists in Iraq, sending fighter jets to attack targets near the Haditha Dam in coordination with ground forces from the Shiite Muslim-dominated Iraqi military and local Sunni
BAGHDAD — The United States on Sunday expanded its air war against Islamic extremists in Iraq, sending fighter jets to attack targets near the Haditha Dam in coordination with ground forces from the Shiite Muslim-dominated Iraqi military and local Sunni Muslim tribes.
The operation was led by Anbar’s governor, Ahmad Khalaf, who received a serious head wound from shrapnel from a mortar round apparently fired by Islamic State fighters. Islamic State fire also killed the mayor of Haditha, Abdul Hakim Mohammad, and one of Khalaf’s bodyguards, the mayor’s media office said.
The fighting began at dawn, and by evening the combined forces had cleared the village of Barawana, north of the dam, of Islamic State fighters who had occupied it for weeks. But fighting continued at a village west of the dam, Khafajia, which remained under Islamic State control, officials said.
The U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla., said in a statement that U.S. combat aircraft destroyed four Islamic State Humvees, four armed vehicles — two of which were carrying anti-aircraft artillery — one fighting position and one command post.
The White House said the operation was intended to protect the Haditha Dam, the second-largest hydroelectric contributor to Iraq’s power system. Its destruction “would have catastrophic consequences for Iraqis living in the Euphrates river valley and even flood Baghdad airport, where hundreds of U.S. personnel reside,” the White House said in a statement.
In a statement issued before his death, Mohammad, the Haditha mayor, said the offensive was being undertaken because local officials wanted to break the hold the Islamic State imposed on villages in the area during the group’s lightning advance across Iraq after the capture in early June of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city.
“We started this operation because for about two months, we had mortars hitting our town, our houses and buildings,” the statement quoted the mayor as saying. “Maybe today or maybe over the next few days, we will get rid of this evil presence.”
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told reporters in Tbilisi, Georgia, that the U.S. intervened at the request of the Shiite-dominated central government in Baghdad.
Sunday’s fighting was a combined operation involving fighters from Iraq’s two major Islamic sects, Shiite and Sunni, whose political standoff during the past two years opened the door for Islamic State fighters, who are Sunni, to seize much of Iraq since mid-June. Shiite-led security forces from the Iraqi Army, with Baghdad-based forces from Iraq’s so-called SWAT team, fought alongside emergency battalions from Haditha and local police, the mayor’s media office said.
A successful combined Sunni-Shiite mission in Anbar province also would raise the likelihood that Sunnis and Shiites can agree quickly on a new Iraqi government. Reports indicated Sunday that Haider al Abadi, a Shiite who was named prime minister-designate a month ago, is close to naming a Cabinet. According to close observers of the process, Sunnis will have eight of the 30 ministerial positions, including the head of either the defense or interior ministry.
