(MENAFN- The Peninsula) The United States has bombed militants near Baghdad in support of Iraqi forces, striking close to the capital for the first time in its expanded campaign against Islamic State jihadists.
But in a sign of their growing strength, a monitoring group said the jihadists had managed to bring down a Syrian warplane conducting strikes over their stronghold of Raqaa in north-central Syria.
The US air strike against IS fighters in the Sadr Al Yusufiyah area, 25km from Baghdad, came as world diplomats pledged to support Iraq in its fight against the militants and less than a week after US President Barack Obama ordered a "relentless" war against IS.
"US military forces continued to attack (IS) terrorists in Iraq, employing attack and fighter aircraft to conduct two air strikes on Sunday and Monday in support of Iraqi security forces near Sinjar and southwest of Baghdad," the US Central Command said statement. The strikes destroyed six IS vehicles near Sinjar and an IS position southwest of Baghdad that had been firing on Iraqi forces. They bring the number of US air strikes across Iraq to 162.
Iraqi security spokesman Lieutenant General Qassem Atta yesterday welcomed the expanded American action, saying the US "carried out an important strike against an enemy target in Sadr Al Yusufiyah."
Sadr Al Yusufiyah lies in the Euphrates Valley, between the militant stronghold of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, and the key battleground of Jurf Al Sakhr, further south. It is one of the closest front lines to Baghdad where Iraqi government forces and allied militia have struggled to defend their positions.
As part of the extended campaign Washington has vowed to carry out strikes in Syria as well, despite warnings from President Bashar Al Assad's regime against violating its airspace.
A senior US official warned that US forces will target Syrian anti-aircraft systems if they take aim at American planes conducting strikes inside Syria against IS.
Yesterday, the jihadists shot down a Syrian warplane conducting strikes against them, the first time they have done so since the regime began bombing their stronghold of Raqaa in July, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. "IS fighters fired on a military aircraft which crashed," the Britain-based monitoring group said.
Meanwhile, Iraq's national security adviser briefed Assad on efforts to counter Islamic State, Syrian state media reported. The United States and other Western governments have dismissed the idea of cooperating with Syria in the fight against Islamic State, which has seized large areas of both Iraq and Syria. Western governments see Assad as part of the problem and say he must leave power.
Faleh Al Fayad, the Iraqi official, "put Assad in the picture of the latest developments in Iraq and the efforts that the Iraqi government and people are making to combat the terrorists", the Syrian state news agency SANA reported.
The meeting stressed "the importance of strengthening cooperation and coordination between the two brotherly countries in the field of combating terrorism that is hitting Syria and Iraq and which threatens the region and the world", SANA said.
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