Arbil, Iraq: Kurdish fighters backed by US warplanes pressed a counter-offensive against militants on Monday after retaking Iraq’s largest dam alongside federal forces, as the United States and Britain stepped up their military involvement.
The recapture of Mosul dam marks the biggest prize yet clawed back from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) militants since they launched a major offensive in northern Iraq in June, sweeping Iraqi security forces aside.
US aircraft carried out strikes on Saturday and Sunday in support of the forces battling to retake the dam from Isil militants, who have declared a “caliphate” straddling vast areas of Iraq and Syria.
On Sunday, the militants also came under attack in their Syrian stronghold of Raqqa by Syria’s air force.
Fighting on Monday erupted in an area south of the Mosul dam while engineering teams worked to clear booby traps and bombs left by militants, said Kawa Khatari, an official from Iraq’s main Kurdish party.
Iraqi security spokesperson Lieutenant General Qasim Atta confirmed on Monday that Mosul dam was entirely liberated in a joint operation by Iraqi “anti-terrorism forces and peshmerga forces with aerial support”.
Atta added on state television that while the dam had been retaken, fighting was continuing in adjoining facilities including a residential compound.
The Mosul dam breakthrough came after US warplanes and drones at the weekend carried out their heaviest-yet bombing against militants in the north since they began launching air strikes on August 8.
The US Central Command reported that the military had carried out 14 air strikes Sunday near the dam located on the Tigris river, which provides electricity and irrigation water for farming to much of the region.
Sunday’s strikes destroyed 10 armed vehicles, seven Humvees, two armoured personnel carriers and one checkpoint of Isil militants.
That military action followed nine US strikes near Arbil and Mosul dam on Saturday.
US President Barack Obama told Congress that the “limited” air strikes he has authorised on Iraq to support the fight for the dam protected US interests there.
OBAMA HIGHLIGHTS STAKES
Highlighting the stakes at hand, Obama said: “The failure of the Mosul dam could threaten the lives of large numbers of civilians, endanger US personnel and facilities, including the US Embassy in Baghdad, and prevent the Iraqi government from providing critical services to the Iraqi populace.”
Isil also faced air strikes on the Syrian side of the border, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
In Raqqa province, the Syrian air force Sunday carried out 16 raids on the city of Raqqa and several more on the town of Tabqa, killing at least 31 militants and eight civilians.
“The regime wants to show the Americans that it is also capable of striking the Isil,” said the Britain-based group’s director, Rami Abdul Rahman.
British Prime Minister David Cameron described the militants sweeping across Syria and Iraq as a direct threat to Britain, and said all available tools must be used to halt their advance.
Cameron, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, said that while it would not be right to send an army into Iraq, some degree of military involvement was justified due to the threat that an expanding “terrorist state” would pose to Europe and its allies.
His Defence Minister Michael Fallon, in comments published on Monday, said Britain’s Iraq involvement now goes beyond a humanitarian mission and is set to last for months.
“We and other countries in Europe are determined to help the government of Iraq combat this new and very extreme form of terrorism,” he was quoted as saying.
Two months of violence brought Iraq to the brink of break-up and world powers, relieved by the exit of divisive premier Nouri Al Maliki, are sending aid to the hundreds of thousands who have fled their homes as well as arms to the Kurdish peshmerga forces.
In the north, members of minority groups including the Yazidis, Christians, Shabak and Turkmen, remain under threat of kidnapping or death at the hands of the militants.
Human rights groups and residents say Isil fighters have been demanding that religious minorities in the Mosul region either convert or leave, unleashing violent reprisals on any who refuse.
Amnesty International, which has been documenting mass abductions in the Sinjar area, says Isil has kidnapped thousands of Yazidis in this month’s offensive.
Tens of thousands have fled, most of them seeking refuge in areas of northern Iraq still under Kurdish control, or in neighbouring Syria.
