Obama authorizes airstrikes, airdrops of aid in Iraq

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama announced Thursday night that he had authorized the Pentagon to launch targeted airstrikes if needed to protect Americans from Islamic militants in northern Iraq and help Iraqi security forces protect civilians under siege, which would revive U.S. military involvement in the country’s long sectarian war.

In a televised late-night statement from the White House, Obama also said American military forces had already carried out airdrops of humanitarian aid to tens of thousands of Iraqi religious minorities desperately in need of food and water.

“Today, America is coming to help,” he said.

The announcements reflected the deepest American engagement in Iraq since U.S. troops withdrew in late 2011 after nearly a decade of war.

Obama said the humanitarian airdrops were made at the request of the Iraqi government. The food and water supplies were delivered to the tens of thousands of Yazidis trapped on a mountain without food and water. The Yazidis, who follow an ancient religion with ties to Zoroastrianism, fled their homes after the Islamic State group issued an ultimatum to convert to Islam, pay a religious fine, flee their homes or face death.

Obama, who has staked much of his legacy as president on ending the Iraq war, acknowledged that the prospect of a new round of U.S. military action would be a cause for concern among many Americans.

He vowed anew not to put combat troops back on the ground in Iraq and said there was no U.S. military solution to the crisis.

“As commander in chief, I will not allow the United States to be drawn into fighting another war in Iraq,” Obama said.

Even so, he outlined a rationale for airstrikes if the Islamic State militants advance on American troops in the northern city of Erbil and the U.S. consulate there. The troops were sent to Iraq this year as part of the White House response to the extremist group’s swift movement across the border with Syria and into Iraq.

“When the lives of American citizens are at risk, we will take action,” Obama said. “That’s my responsibility as commander in chief.”

He said he had also authorized the use of targeted military strikes if necessary to help the Iraqi security forces protect civilians.

Obama spoke after a day of urgent discussions with his national security team. He addressed the nation only after the American military aircraft delivering food and water to the Iraqis had safely left the drop site in northern Iraq.

The Pentagon said the airdrops were performed by one C-17 and two C-130 cargo aircraft that together delivered 72 bundles of food and water. They were escorted by two F/A-18 fighters from an undisclosed air base in the region.

The planes delivered 5,300 gallons of fresh drinking water and 8,000 pre-packaged meals and were over the drop area for less than 15 minutes at a low altitude.

Obama cast the mission to assist the Yazidis as part of the American mandate to assist around the world when the U.S. has the unique capabilities to help avert a massacre.

In those cases, Obama said, “we can act carefully and responsibly to prevent a potential act of genocide.”

The Yazidis left the western Iraqi town of Sinjar earlier this week and, like thousands of other Iraqis who have fled the Islamic State this year, headed east to the relatively peaceful Kurdish region.

As militants advanced, White House press secretary Josh Earnest called the situation “a particularly acute one, in that the stakes are very high. We’re seeing innocent populations be persecuted just because of their religious or ethnic identity.”

Earlier Thursday, the Islamic State reportedly seized Iraq’s largest hydroelectric dam, giving them control of enormous power and water resources and leverage over the Tigris River that runs through the heart of Baghdad.

After a week of attempts, the radical Islamist gunmen successfully stormed the Mosul Dam and forced Kurdish forces to withdraw from the area, residents living near the dam told The Associated Press. They spoke on condition of anonymity due to safety concerns.

The al-Qaeda breakaway group posted a statement online Thursday, confirming it had taken control of the dam. Halgurd Hekmat, a spokesman for the Kurdish fighters, told the AP that clashes around the dam were ongoing and he didn’t know who currently had control over it.

The Kurds have pleaded for international assistance as they have increasingly lost control of the 650-mile border between their semiautonomous region and territory controlled by the Islamic State. They say they have been left to fend off the militants alone.

The withdrawals have highlighted the fragility of Kurdish defenses. Known as some of the fiercest and most professional fighters in the region, the pesh merga forces now complain of being short on ammunition and outgunned by militants who have seized caches of advanced U.S. military equipment from the Iraqi army.

“What took place was a tactical retreat,” said Brig. Gen. Azad Jalil, a pesh merga commander in the area, describing withdrawals from Qaraqush and nearby Bartella, bringing the Islamists to within 40 miles of Erbil. He said there were no casualties because the pullback took place “without a fight.”

“Our capability is limited,” said a Kurdish official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. “We do not have the ammunition; we do not have weaponry.”

In a statement, the Islamic State listed what it said were 17 military advances against the Kurds over the past five days. It said it had launched the offensive to avenge alleged shelling by the Kurds on Mosul, which the Islamic State seized in June.

The Washington Post contributed to this report.

Who are the Yazidis?

The Yazidis, globally, number about 700,000 people, but the vast majority of the community — about half a million to 600,000 — live concentrated in Iraq’s north. The city of Sinjar was their heartland. This week, tens of thousands of Yazidis fled the advance through northern Iraq of the Islamic State jihadists. Despite its connections to Islam, the Yazidi faith remains distinctly apart. It was one of the non-Abrahamic creeds left in the Middle East, drawing on various pre-Islamic and Persian traditions. Yazidis believe in a form of reincarnation and adhere to a strict caste system. Yazidism borrows from Zoroastrianism, which held sway in what’s now Iran and its environs before the advent of Islam.The sect has suffered a long history of persecution, caught amid the ambitions of empires and later the emergence of fractious Arab states. The Washington Post