MOSCOW, August 12 (RIA Novosti) – The US military has conducted airstrikes against Islamic State (IS) militants north of Mount Sinjar, where thousands of Iraqi residents are trapped.
“US military forces continued to attack ISIL [another acronym for the Islamic State] terrorists in Iraq today, successfully conducting an airstrike on an ISIL mortar position north of Sinjar,” US Central Command said in a statement, issued on Tuesday.
According to the document, the attack was conducted early in the morning, when “US remotely piloted aircraft struck and destroyed an ISIL mortar position that was firing on Kurdish forces defending internally displaced Yazidi civilians who were attempting to evacuate.”
The United States has launched airstrikes against the IS, which is also known as ISIS and ISIL, last week after President Barack Obama approved the move, saying the operation aims to protect US personnel in Iraq and prevent the “genocide” of Iraqi religious minorities. The Sunni Muslim group controls large swathes of Iraq and Syria. Recent attacks on Kurdish-run northern Iraq have forced tens of thousands of Christians to flee their homes.
