Obama lauds 'recapture' of Mosul Dam from ISIS
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US President Barack Obama declared a “major step forward” in Iraq on Monday after American fighter jets, bombers and drones assisted Kurdish and Iraqi forces in driving the Islamic State (ISIS) back from Mosul dam.
Obama lauded the cooperation of the Iraqi and Kurdish forces on the ground at the Mosul Dam, calling effective local ground forces a bulwark against an expanding, unclear US mission. “If we have effective partners on the ground, mission creep is less likely,” Obama said in a brief press conference on Monday afternoon.
US Central Command, operationally in charge of the Iraq strikes, said on Monday that it launched 15 airstrikes against Isis near the Mosul Dam on Monday alone, bringing the total to 35 since Saturday. In the first eight days of the newest US campaign in Iraq, 33 airstrikes had been launched in pursuit of what Obama identified as the original purpose of US forces’ return to Iraq: preventing a genocide of Yazidis at Mount Sinjar and protecting US personnel in Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.
The ISIS militants had seized the Mosul Dam on 7 August, giving them access and control of enormous power and water reserves and threatening to deny those resources to much of Iraq.raqi forces suffered a string of humiliating defeats as the ISIS took over large parts of northern and western Iraq and sent religious minorities fleeing.
The militants' battlefield victories brought US forces back into the conflict for the first time since it withdrew its troops in 2011 and reflected the growing international concern about the Sunni extremist group. Washington launched attacks from its warplanes and drones on 8 August.