U.S. warplanes strike Islamic State artillery to protect Kurds

By Raheem Salman and Matt Spetalnick

(Reuters) – U.S. warplanes struck Iraq on Friday for the first time since American troops pulled out in 2011, attacking Islamist fighters advancing towards the Kurdish region after President Barack Obama said Washington must act to prevent “genocide”.

The fighters had advanced to within a half hour’s drive of Arbil, capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region and a hub for U.S. oil companies. A Pentagon spokesman said two F/A-18 aircraft dropped laser-guided bombs on a mobile artillery piece used by Islamic State fighters to shell Kurdish forces defending Arbil.

Obama authorized air strikes after tens of thousands of Christians fled for their lives from Islamic State fighters who have crucified and beheaded captives.

The United States also started to drop relief supplies to members of the ancient Yazidi sect massed on a desert mountaintop seeking shelter from the fighters who had ordered them to convert or die.

Read more at http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/08/us-iraq-security-idUSKBN0G808J20140808