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 President Barack Obama said he had authorized limited bombing to
prevent "genocide" and blunt the onslaught of Sunni radicals who
have captured swathes of northern Iraq and advanced to a half hour
drive from the Kurdish regional capital, Arbil.
It was the first time since the Islamists - an offshoot of al-Qaeda
- began a lightning offensive in June, overrunning swathes of
northern and western Iraq and declaring a "caliphate" in captured
areas of Iraq and Syria, that the United States has opted for
military action.
Deeply reluctant to engage U.S. forces in the Middle East again
after costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama said he had
approved a "targeted" use of air power to protect U.S. personnel if
Islamic State militants advance further towards Arbil, seat of the
Kurdistan regional government.
He made a late-night television address after the first U.S.
transport planes dropped food and water to members of the Yazidi
ethno-religious minority sheltering in hostile mountain terrain
after the Islamists captured their home town of Sinjar.
Reuters photographs on Thursday showed the insurgents had raised
their black flag over a checkpoint just 45 km (28 miles) from Arbil,
bringing them closer than ever to the city of 1.5 million which is
also the region's economic capital.
The Islamists' advance and the threat of U.S. military action sent
shares and the dollar tumbling on world financial markets, as
investors moved to safe haven assets such as gold and German
government bonds.
U.S. oil majors Exxon Mobil and Chevron operating in Iraqi Kurdistan
evacuated expatriate staff on Thursday, industry sources said, and
the shares of several oil companies operating in the region fell for
a second day on Friday.
However, a spokesman for Austria's OMV energy company, which has
worked in the region since 2008, said the Islamists' advance was
having no impact on its operations.
"Everything for us is under control," he said.
"AMERICA IS COMING TO HELP"
Obama said air strikes, which would be the first by the U.S.
military in Iraq since its withdrawal in 2011, could also be used to
support Iraqi and Kurdish forces trying to break the Islamists'
siege of Sinjar mountain, where tens of thousands of Yazidis have
taken refuge.
"Earlier this week, one Iraqi in the area cried to the world, 'There
is no one coming to help'," said Obama. "Well, today America is
coming to help."
Yazidis, ethnic Kurds who practice an ancient faith related to
Zoroastrianism, are among a handful of pre-Islamic minority groups
who survived for centuries in northern Iraq. They are believed to
number in the hundreds of thousands, most living in Iraq, with small
communities in the Caucasus and Europe.
"We can act carefully and responsibly to prevent a potential act of
genocide," said Obama, calling the militants "barbaric."
U.S. officials also announced an acceleration of military supplies
to the Kurdish regional government, whose peshmerga forces have been
routed by the Islamists as they seized control of a dozen towns and
the country's biggest dam in the last week.
Obama insisted he would not commit ground forces and had no
intention of letting the United States "get dragged into fighting
another war in Iraq".
The U.S. Defense Department said planes dropped 72 bundles of
supplies, including 8,000 ready-to-eat meals and thousands of
gallons of drinking water, for threatened civilians near Sinjar.
Northern Iraq has long been one of the most diverse parts of the
Middle East, home to isolated ethnic and religious minorities who
survived centuries of pressure to assimilate into the
Arabic-speaking Muslim world.
Tens of thousands of Iraqi Christians have also fled for their lives
after Islamic State fighters overran their hometown of Qaraqosh on
Thursday.
In Baghdad, Yazidi lawmaker Mahma Khalil told Reuters up to 250,000
Yazidis had fled the Islamists and were in desperate need of
life-saving assistance.
"We hear through the media there is American help, but nothing on
ground," said Khalil, who is in touch with Yazidis on Sinjar
mountain. Relief supplies that had reached the area so far were
woefully insufficient, he said.
"Please save us! SOS! save us!" he said several times. "Our people
are in the desert. They are exposed to a genocide."
Yazidis are regarded by the Islamic State as "devil worshippers" and
risk being executed by militants seeking to establish an Islamic
empire and redraw the Middle East map. A United Nations humanitarian
spokesman said some 200,000 people fleeing the Islamists' advance
had reached the town of Dohuk on the Tigris River, in Iraqi
Kurdistan, and nearby areas of Niniveh province.
Tens of thousands have fled further north to the Turkish border,
Turkish officials said.
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DOUBTS
Questions were quickly raised in Washington about whether selective
U.S. attacks on militant positions and humanitarian airdrops would
be enough to shift the balance on the battlefield against the
Islamist forces.
"I completely support humanitarian aid as well as the use of air
power," Republican Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted after Obama's
announcement. "However the actions announced tonight will not turn
the tide of battle."
The Kurdish regional government insisted on Thursday its forces were
advancing and would "defeat the terrorists," urging people to stay
calm. Local authorities cut off social media in what one official
said was an attempt to stop rumors spreading and prevent panic.
The mood in Arbil on Friday was calm but apprehensive. One resident
said some residents had returned home after initially leaving the
regional capital in fear of the Islamists' advance.
"Two days ago there was fear but now it's better," said Omaid, a
37-year-old dentist on his way to the market. "Two days ago, people
left the city if they had homes in the villages and went there. Now
people's state of mind has improved and those who left have
returned."
Residents were stockpiling food and weapons, he said.
Faced with deep Congressional and public reluctance, Obama backed
away from using air power against President Bashar al-Assad's forces
in Syria last year after chemical weapons were used. Assad has since
regained the upper hand against divided opposition forces in a
three-year-old civil war.
However, the president said preventing a humanitarian catastrophe
and averting a threat to American lives and interests in Iraqi
Kurdistan were ample justification for the use of U.S. military
force in Iraq.
Seeking to keep some pressure on Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki,
Obama insisted on the need for an Iraqi government that "represents
the legitimate interests of all Iraqis" to reverse the militants'
momentum.
Maliki is a member of Iraq's Shi'ite majority, and Sunnis, Kurds and
some fellow Shi'ites accuse him of running a sectarian government,
causing resentment that fed the Sunni insurgency. He is negotiating
to hold onto power for a third term after an inconclusive election
in April, although Sunnis, Kurds and some Shi'ite leaders have
demanded he step aside.
Neighboring Iran, which along with Washington had backed Maliki, is
working diplomatically to try to find a less polarizing figure who
can united Iraq's sectarian factions. Tehran has also sent elite
Revolutionary Guard officers to help organize the defense of
Baghdad, Iranian sources say.
Obama sent a small number of U.S. military advisers in June in an
effort to help the Iraqi government’s efforts to fend off the
Islamist offensive.
The Islamists' latest gains sparked an international outcry.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was "deeply appalled" by
the attacks by Islamic State militants. The U.N. Security Council
condemned the group and called on the international community to
support the Iraqi government.
French President Francois Hollande's office said after he spoke by
telephone with Kurdistan president Masoud Barzani that Paris was
prepared to support forces engaged in the defense of Iraqi
Kurdistan. A French official said the assistance would be
"technical" rather than military.
The Islamic State poses the biggest threat to Iraq's integrity since
the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Its fighters have proudly posted
videos on the Internet of themselves massacring prisoners as they
advance.
Shi'ite militia which have rallied to protect Baghdad have also been
accused by rights groups of kidnappings and killings. With thousands
of people killed and hundreds of thousands fleeing their homes, the
past two months have brought back violence unseen in Iraq since the
worst few months of its 2006-2007 sectarian civil war under U.S.
occupation.
The Islamic State's gains have prompted Maliki to order his air
force to help the Kurds, whose reputation as fearsome warriors has
been eroded by the past week's defeats.
(Additional reporting from Isabel Coles in Arbil and Michael Georgy
in Baghdad, Michael Shields in Vienna; Writing by Paul Taylor;
Editing by Peter Graff)
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