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Updated 11.08 pm
THE UNITED STATES has launched an air strike against Islamic State militants in Iraq.
US President Barack Obama had earlier ordered US warplanes back into the skies over the country to drop food to refugees and, if necessary, launch air strikes to halt what he said was a potential “genocide.”
The warplanes have now launched their first strike on the Islamic extremists according to the Pentagon’s press secretary who made the announcement on twitter.
Rear admiral John Kirby said the attack targeted artillery that was used against Kurdish forces.
Extremists
The US air armada’s first mission was to drop food and water to thousands of members of the Yazidi religious minority besieged by Sunni extremist fighters from the so-called Islamic State.
But Obama warned that he had also authorised the military to carry out targeted strikes in support of Iraqi forces to break the Islamists’ advance or to protect US advisors working on the ground.
The president said US warplanes could also target Islamic State militants if they advance on the city of Arbil, where the US has a diplomatic presence and advisors to Iraqi forces.
“We plan to stand vigilant and take action if they threaten our facilities anywhere in Iraq, including the consulate in Arbil and embassy in Baghdad,” he said.
A senior US defence official confirmed the mission had already dropped “critical meals and water for thousands of Iraqi citizens,” Yazidis trapped in the open on Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq.
Obama said there were perhaps tens of thousands of civilian refugees, and he accused the IS of attempting “the systematic destruction of the entire people, which would constitute genocide.”
The president admitted the United States can not act every time it sees injustice, but insisted: “We can act, carefully and responsibly to prevent a potential act of genocide.
“That’s what we’re doing on that mountain. I therefore authorized targeted air strikes if necessary to help forces in Iraq as they fight to break the siege and protect the civilians trapped there,” he added.
Despite this note of determination, Obama was at pains to assure war weary Americans that he — the president who withdrew US forces from Iraq — was not about to get “dragged into fighting another war.”
“American combat troops will not be returning to fight in Iraq, because there is no American military solution to the larger crisis in Iraq,” he promised.
Earlier, in New York, the United Nations Security Council urged world powers “to support the government and the people of Iraq and to do all it can to help alleviate the suffering of the population.”
Iraqi Ambassador Ali al-Hakim said the meeting focused on the need for urgent relief efforts to help civilians fleeing the violence, and denied reports that air strikes had also been carried out.
Separately, French President Francois Hollande’s office said “France was available to support forces engaged in this battle.”
Mountain siege
Obama came to office determined to end US military involvement in Iraq and in his first term oversaw the withdrawal of the huge ground force deployed there since the 2003 American invasion.
But recent rapid gains by the Islamic State, a successor group to Al-Qaeda’s former Iraqi and Syrian operations, compelled him to send military advisors back to Baghdad to evaluate the situation.
The Sunni extremists, along with other Sunni factions, are at war with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s mainly Shiite government forces and with the peshmerga forces of the Kurdish autonomous region of the country.
In late June, IS proclaimed a “caliphate” straddling rebel-held areas of Syria and Iraq and seized the major city of Mosul. In recent days, it has seized towns formerly populated by Christians and Yazidis.
Iraqi religious leaders say Islamic State militants have forced 100,000 Iraqi Christians to flee and have occupied churches, removing crosses and destroying manuscripts.
“Qaraqosh, Tal Kayf, Bartella and Karamlesh have been emptied of their original population and are now under the control of the militants,” Joseph Thomas, the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Kirkuk and Sulaimaniyah, told AFP.
Entirely Christian Qaraqosh lies between Mosul, the jihadists’ main hub in Iraq, and Arbil, the Kurdish region’s capital. It usually has a population of around 50,000.
Tal Kayf, the home of a significant Christian community as well as members of the Shabak Shiite minority, also emptied overnight.
100,000 Christians flee
“I heard some gunshots last night and, when I looked outside, I saw a military convoy from the Islamic State… shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’,” said Boutros Sargon, a refugee who was reached by phone in Arbil.
Meanwhile, several thousand Yazidis, members of an ancient pre-Muslim religious minority, are stranded on high ground after being driven out of their home town of Sinjar by IS fighters.
Fares Sinjari Abu Ivan, a Yazidi beekeeper who fled with his 80-year-old mother to the barren mountains, told AFP by phone that some groups had attempted to flee but experienced mixed fortunes.
“We have spoken to some who made it to Turkey but in their flight, they encountered Daash (Islamic State) fighters who cut the road. Some fled, some were killed and others came back to the mountain.”
Turkish officials said up to 800 displaced Sinjaris made their own way to Turkey, while the PKK Kurdish separatist group said it had evacuated several families after opening a safe passage to Syria.
The Islamic State boasted of its latest victories, declaring: “We are pleased to announce to the Islamic nation a new liberation in Nineveh province, teaching the secular Kurds a lesson.”
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So the bollards were removed in Nov 2023 by some amadan.
Reported in January by a concerned resident, and the council couldn’t complete the complicated task of replacing the bollards, mitigating the risk at the dangerous junction 4 months after reporting , 6 months after it occurred.
Poor woman. Such needless loss of life on Irish roads. We all need to take collective responsibility and cop on.
Seriously what use are plastic bollards to protect vulnerable cyclists, poor young woman
@Terry Molloy: Drivers see the bollards and should take heed and slow down for cyclists or pedestrians but in this case some headcase removed them resulting needlessly in a young womans death
@barry williams: The article suggests the bollards were ‘dug up’, which requires a lot of effort, and equipment, far more than simple removal.
And time.
There seems to be more to this than meets the eye.
@Jimmy Wallace: If those bollards were in place then the vehicle would have had to strike them – possibly causing damage to the vehicle – to also collide with the cyclist.
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: If they are like the ones I’m thinking of, they are flexible when hit and spring back upright afterwards causing no damage to any vehicle. They unfortunately can be screwed out of the ground easily and this used to happen in my local area where young lads would be messing with them at night. They are better than nothing, but no substitute for proper segregated off road cycle lanes which actually protect cyclists and encourage cycling in any countries which have them.
@Terry Molloy: Sad reality is that some drivers are more concerned to avoid scraping their paintwork off a fixed object than to avoid a cyclist. Studies show them slowing down more for bollards than pedestrians/ cyclists
@Longlin: Thanks Longlin.
@Terry Molloy: read what Barry said Terry – they work just understand that..far far better to have them at junctions like that than not…
Large trucks have to drive over these plastic bollards on some roads when turning.
No accountability yet again for our “public servants” who will, yet again, skip off without answering any hard questions.
These cycle lanes are a nightmare where Safety has not been prioritised
Please let the person who removed them get the Karma deserved
have your say