U.S. warplanes carried out four strikes yesterday on “Islamic State” terrorists menacing Iraq’s Haditha Dam, witnesses and officials said, widening what President Barack Obama called a campaign to curb and ultimately defeat the jihadist movement.
Obama has branded Islamic State an acute threat to the West as well as Middle East and said that key NATO allies stand ready to back Washington in action against the well-armed sectarian force, which has seized expanses of northern Iraq and eastern Syria and declared a border-blurring religious caliphate.
The leader of a pro-Iraqi government paramilitary force in western Iraq said the air strikes wiped out an Islamic State patrol trying to attack the dam which supplies both water and power to large parts of the country.
“They (the air strikes) were very accurate. There was no collateral damage … If Islamic State had gained control of the dam, many areas of Iraq would have been seriously threatened, even (the capital) Baghdad,” Sheik Ahmed Abu Risha told the media.
