Obama Enlists 9 Allies to Help in the Battle Against ISIS

             Video Credit By Christian Roman and Carrie Halperin on Publish Date September 5, 2014. Image CreditPool photo by Wpa                           



President Obama escalated the U.S. response to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, recruiting at least nine allies to help crush the organization and offering the outlines of a strategy that echoes the war on terror.

Secretary of State John Kerry said there's a need to "bolster the Iraqi security forces and others in the region who are prepared to take them on, without committing troops of our own," he said. "Obviously I think that's a red line for everybody here: no boots on the ground."

In his most expansive comments to date about how the United States and its friends could defeat ISIS, a once-obscure group of Sunni militants that has now upended the Middle East and overshadowed Al Qaeda, Mr. Obama said the effort would rely on American airstrikes against its leaders and positions, strengthen the moderate Syrian rebel groups to reclaim ground lost to ISIS, and enlist friendly governments in the region to join the fight.

While the president’s aides maintained that he has not yet decided to authorize airstrikes in Syria — which he has already done on a limited basis in Iraq — Mr. Obama likened his developing strategy on ISIS to the American effort against Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal regions, which has relied heavily on airstrikes.

   

In Retaking of Iraqi Dam, Evidence of American Impact



JOY AT IRAQI DAM A Kurdish fighter with a black ISIS flag kissed the Kurdish flag at the recaptured Mosul Dam. Credit Lynsey Addario for The New York Times        

N.Y. TIMES

MOSUL DAM, Iraq — The two bodies lay festering in the midday sun on Tuesday, some of the only remnants of the Sunni militant force that until Monday night controlled the strategically important Mosul Dam.

Around them was the evidence of not just a fierce battle but also a different sort of fight: buildings reduced to rubble; cars churned into twisted metal; mammoth craters gouged from the road.

All bore testament to the deadly effect American airstrikes were having on the militants of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, who until this month were marauding over northern Iraq with little resistance and who two weeks ago seized control of the dam.

 

It was not until President Obama authorized airstrikes by the United States military on Aug. 7 that the Sunni fighters’ advance was halted. Two days of concerted air assaults starting Sunday around the dam then paved the way for Iraqi and Kurdish forces to reclaim the site. The dam itself, backed by a turquoise lake and surrounded by dun-colored mountains, was in fine condition, with little evidence of damage either from the fighting or from two weeks in militant hands.

 

The body of a dead ISIS fighter found within the Mosel Dam complex the morning after pesh merga and Iraqi Special forces retook the dam.        Credit Lynsey Addario for The New York Times        

 

The pesh merga have received the majority of the credit for retaking the dam. But the Iraqi Special Forces troops who worked alongside them, who were created in the image of their American counterparts, have gotten far less attention. Known as the Golden Force, fighters interviewed Tuesday said they came from Baghdad and were called into the fight several days ago.