FILE - A general view of the dam in Mosul, 360 kilometers (225 miles) northwest of Baghdad, Iraq.
Kurdish and Iraqi forces battled Sunday against Islamic State militants near a strategic dam in northern Iraq.
Kurdish forces are reported to have made advances against the militants.
On Saturday, U.S. warplanes conducted airstrikes in the area to provide cover for the Kurdish and Iraqi forces as they fight to retake Mosul dam from the militants who seized it earlier this month.
The U.S. military said Saturday nine airstrikes destroyed or damaged armored personnel carriers, an armored vehicle and Humvees.
The officials said the airstrikes involved FA-18 fighter jets and drones. The strikes provided cover to Iraqi and Kurdish forces fighting to retake Mosul Dam from militants who seized it earlier this month.
The dam, located on the Tigris River in northern Iraq, is the country＇s largest and provides power to much of the country.
Strikes hit areas near the militant-controlled dam as the leader of Iraq’s Kurds appealed for weapons and supplies from Germany and other EU nations.
British military prowess
British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Sunday that Britain should use its military prowess to deal with Islamic State militants in Iraq.
In an article he wrote for Britain＇s Sunday Telegraph newspaper, Cameron said the Islamic State militants had to be stopped from creating what he called "a terrorist state on the shores of the Mediterranean.＇＇
On Saturday, witnesses said Islamic State militants massacred 80 people, most of them members of the Yazidi religious minority, during a raid on the northern Iraqi village of Kocho.
Islamic State has captured wide swathes of northern Iraq since June, executing non-Sunni Muslim captives, displacing tens of thousands of people and drawing the first U.S. air strikes in the region since Washington withdrew troops in 2011.
This week’s airstrikes, U.S. official said, were aimed in part at preventing the massacre of tens of thousands of Yazidis who took shelter on a barren mountaintop. Most were able to escape with the help of Kurdish fighters.
Residents living near the dam told The Associated Press Saturday that the area was being targeted by airstrikes, but it was not immediately clear whether the attacks were being carried out by Iraq＇s air force or the United States. Islamic State militants seized the Tigris River dam on Aug. 7.
U.S. officials refused to comment on the reports.
Kurdish Leaders Appeals to Germany
The leader of Iraq＇s Kurds, meanwhile, appealed to Germany for weapons to help Kurdish fighters battling militants, and said foreign powers must find a way to cut off the group＇s funding.
The European Union on Friday gave backing to EU governments who want to supply arms and ammunition to the Kurds, but only with the consent of the government in Baghdad.
Germany has shied away from direct involvement in military conflicts for much of the past few decades. A survey conducted for the Bild am Sonntag newspaper indicated that almost three-quarters of Germans were against shipping weapons to the Kurds.
Masoud Barzani, the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, said the Kurds needed more than the humanitarian aid that Germany began sending on Friday to support people forced to flee their homes by the militants’ advance.
"We also expect Germany to deliver weapons and ammunition to our army so that we can fight back against the (Islamic State) terrorists," Barzani told the German magazine Focus.
He said they needed German training and what they lacked most were anti-tank weapons.
Barzani also said foreign governments had to find a way to choke off Islamic State＇s sources of funding.
"A grand alliance must drain the IS＇s financial sources and prevent individuals from aligning themselves with the IS group," he said.
"The first source of IS＇s income was the oilfields in Syria. Later they stole more than $1 billion from state banks in Mosul and Tikrit. They also got financial support from several other countries and donors,” he was quoted as saying.
He estimated that the IS took in $3 million every day via levies and oil theft.
German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen has sought to temper Kurdish expectations, saying Friday that forces in Iraq were trained on Soviet-designed weapons that Germany did not have and could not deliver.
But Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier held out the possibility of sending more than humanitarian help. He said Barzani had made clear to him in Iraq on Saturday that Kurdish fighters did not always have the necessary equipment to defend themselves.
Speaking in the Kurdish regional capital Irbil, Steinmeier reiterated his view that Germany should go to the "the limits of what is politically and legally doable" to help the Kurds.
He said Germany would provide more than 24 million euros’ worth of humanitarian aid and added his visit was intended as "a signal of support and that you won＇t be left alone in this difficult situation."
In an interview with German broadcaster ARD Steinmeier said the government would "look at the Kurds＇ wishes very closely when I get back to Berlin and then make a responsible decision."
Reports of Yazidi Massacre
The Associated Press quoted officials and witnesses as saying that extremist fighters had killed 80 Yazidi men and abducted their wives and children. The fighters who had surrounded the village of Kocho 12 days ago, demanding its Yazidi residents convert or die, moved in, local people told the AP.
The militants took the men away in groups of a few dozen and shot them dead with assault rifles on the edge of the village, according to one wounded man who escaped by feigning death.
The fighters then walked among the bodies, finishing off any who appeared to still be alive with their pistols, the 42-year-old man told AP by phone from an area where he was hiding out.
A Yazidi lawmaker, a Kurdish security official and an Iraqi official from the nearby city of Sinjar gave similar accounts.
The Yazidis are a centuries-old religious minority that are considered to be apostates by the Islamic State, which subscribes to a fundamentalist view of Islam.
Also Friday, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution to impose sanctions on the spokesman for the Islamic State group and five other men for recruiting or financing Islamic fighters in Iraq and Syria. The Security Council also threatened sanctions against others who finance, recruit or supply weapons to the insurgents.
An estimated 1.5 million people have been displaced since Islamic State militants swept across northern and western Iraq began in June. |
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