According to Russia Today, strikes were launched in coordination with the Syrian government

Iraq has officially launched air strikes on Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) strongholds in Syria on Thursday. According to Russia Today, strikes were launched in coordination with the Syrian government.

"According to the orders of the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Dr. Haider Al-Abadi, our heroic air force carried out, on Thursday, in Syria near Iraqi border deadly air strikes against Daesh's Terrorists gangs," Iraqi Prime Minister's office tweeted on Thursday.



According to the orders of the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Dr. Haider Al-Abadi, our heroic air force carried out, on Thursday, in Syria near Iraqi border deadly air strikes against Daesh's Terrorists gangs.

This comes days after US, UK and France carried out a joint military strike in Syria.

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This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever.</s>WASHINGTON — The drama of U.S. and allied missile strikes on Syria has obscured a sobering fact: The U.S.-led campaign to eliminate the Islamic State from Syria has stalled.

The U.S. has 2,000 troops in Syria assisting local Arab and Kurdish fighters against IS, even as President Donald Trump resists deeper U.S. involvement and is eager to withdraw completely in coming months. Trump wants “other people” to deal with Syria, whose civil war has spawned the greatest humanitarian crisis since World War II in terms of refugees.

It’s unclear whether Trump will go ahead with a total U.S. withdrawal while IS retains even a small presence in Syria.

Since January, when Trump asserted in his State of the Union address that “very close to 100 percent” of IS territory in Syria and Iraq had been liberated, progress toward extinguishing the extremists’ caliphate, or self-proclaimed state, has ground to a halt and shows no sign of restarting. U.S. warplanes continue to periodically bomb remaining pockets of IS in eastern Syria, but ground operations by U.S. partner forces have slowed.

“We’ve halted forward progress and are essentially attempting to avoid losing territory we’ve gained to date,” said Jennifer Cafarella, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War. She sees two potential solutions: send additional U.S. combat power to eastern Syria to take on IS more directly, or resolve a diplomatic dispute with Turkey that has largely sidelined the main U.S. military partner in Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces.

Now that Trump has upped the ante by attacking Syria directly for the second time in just over a year, Cafarella said in an interview this week, it is possible that Syria and its two main international supporters — Russia and Iran — will retaliate militarily against American forces and their Kurdish and Arab partners in eastern Syria “in an attempt to compel an American withdrawal by raising the cost of continued American involvement.”

The U.S. began bombing IS in Syria in September 2014 and deployed an initial contingent of 50 special operations troops in the country the following year. The anti-IS campaign gained momentum in 2016 and made its biggest gains during Trump’s first year in office.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led military coalition against IS refused this week to say how many IS fighters remain. Col. Ryan Dillon said they are holed up mainly in two places in eastern Syria. He said they are in and around the town of Hajin on the Euphrates River north of Bukamal and in Dashisha near the city of Deir el-Zour. They are “contained” in these areas, he asserted, suggesting they are not in immediate danger of being ousted.

Of concern, Dillon said, are indications that IS is stepping up successful attacks against pro-government fighters elsewhere in Syria.

The Trump administration has been saying in recent months that 98 percent of IS territory has been liberated, suggesting the campaign was close to final victory, although on April 3 the Army general overseeing the campaign, Joseph Votel, put it differently, saying “well over 90 percent” of the caliphate had been retaken.

“The situation continues to become more and more complex,” Votel said, alluding in part to the effects of a Turkish incursion into the town of Afrin in northwestern Syria.

The Afrin operation was part of a Turkish plan to drive the main Syrian Kurdish militia, known as the YPG, away from the Turkish border area. Turkey considers the YPG a threat to its national security and an extension of Kurdish insurgents inside Turkey. But the YPG also is America’s main partner in Syria; it forms the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF. Turkey’s advance on Afrin prompted the SDF to shift from fighting IS to confronting Turkey in Afrin.

The result: “We are no longer in an offensive effort on the ground against them (Islamic State),” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters March 27.

Even so, eliminating IS in Syria remains the goal, he said after Trump announced the missile strikes to punish the Syrian government for its alleged chemical weapons use.

The barrage of 105 missiles launched by the United States, Britain and France last week to destroy elements of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal was designed to deter President Bashar Assad from repeating his alleged use of chlorine gas and perhaps nerve gas on civilians in a Damascus suburb. It was unrelated to the IS problem, except in the sense that it highlighted the jumble of actors involved and the absence of a broad U.S. strategy.

Sen. John McCain, one of the Congress’ most vocal advocates for a fuller U.S. role in Syria, praised Trump for the missile strikes. But he also said the president needs to look beyond defeating IS and stopping further chemical weapons use by Assad to tackle the bigger challenge of regional conflict.

“Airstrikes disconnected from a broader strategy may be necessary, but they alone will not achieve U.S. objectives in the Middle East,” he said.

Follow the Bangor Daily News on Facebook for the latest Maine news.</s>The U.S., France, the UK, Israel, Turkey, Russia, and other countries that are participating in the U.S.-led air campaign against ISIS in eastern Syria are all bombing the war-torn country. Now, after a week of aerial chaos over Syria that started with a large coordinated cruise missile strike on chemical weapons-related targets, followed by repeated attacks by the Isreali Air Force, and news that Iran is now deploying air defense assets to the country, as well as the possibility that ISIS may be on the rise again there, Iraq has waded into the air combat fray.

The office of Iraq's prime minister issued the following curt statement to mark the country's opening up of air operations in Syria:

"On the orders of the Commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Dr. Haider Abadi, our heroic Air Force on Thursday carried out deadly airstrikes against the sites of the terrorist ISIL gangs in Syria on the Iraqi border."

The post-Saddam Iraqi Air Force has never, as far as we know, ventured into another country's airspace and dropped weapons on a target operationally—that is until now. There is very limited information at this time on exactly what targets were hit and with what aircraft. Iraq has a number of fixed-wing combat aircraft including F-16IQs, T-50s, Su-25s, and armed Cessna Caravans, as well an array of helicopter gunships that could have prosecuted targets in Syria. But what's most pressing at this time is learning how the strikes were deconflicted with U.S.-led coalition forces, or if they were at all.

We will update this post as more information comes available.

The New York Times reports that the strikes were coordinated with the Assad government and were carried out using F-16s. If indeed the Iraqi government, which has close ties to Iran—and Iran backs Assad directly—did not work with the U.S. on these sorties it could drastically complicate the airspace over eastern Syria and it could lead to a major fracture in U.S.-Iraq military and diplomatic relations.

Last week prime minister al-Abadi said Iraq would defend itself from militant threats across their own borders. The Iraqi government declared victory over ISIS in December of 2017.

We have heard that five targets were struck during the raid.</s>Baku. 22 November. REPORT.AZ/ U.S.-led coalition forces launched airstrikes on Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

The airstrikes killed 31 ISIL militants in the Mosul and Saladin provinces, according to Iraqi officials.

At least seven ISIL militants were killed in Iraq’s Mosul province after the coalition’s airstrikes, Mosul police chief Major Gen, Khalid al-Hamdani told Anadolu Agency.

According to Mosul State hospital sources, nine other ISIL militants were also killed in the airstrikes.

In the Sinjar district, another 15 ISIL militants were killed, and an ISIL base was bombed, according to local sources in the district.

Meanwhile U.S. Central Command released a statement reporting that U.S.-led coalition forces launched 30 airstrikes on ISIL targets in Syria and Iraq in the last three days.

The airstrikes destroyed buildings, storage spaces, vehicles, control zones, armed vehicles and a police station in ISIL-held territory in Syria and Iraq, the statement said.

The U.S. is leading an international coalition, which includes France, Germany, and Saudi Arabia, and has carried out numerous airstrikes against ISIL in Iraq and Syria.

Since mid-June, fighting in Iraq has pitted the Iraqi army and Kurdish peshmerga forces against ISIL militants, who are currently in control of large swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria.

According to the U.N., an estimated 1.8 million citizens have been driven from their homes by the conflict in Iraq this year.</s>WASHINGTON — The drama of U.S. and allied missile strikes on Syria has obscured a sobering fact: The U.S.-led campaign to eliminate the Islamic State from Syria has stalled.

The U.S. has 2,000 troops in Syria assisting local Arab and Kurdish fighters against IS, even as President Donald Trump resists deeper U.S. involvement and is eager to withdraw completely in coming months. Trump wants “other people” to deal with Syria, whose civil war has spawned the greatest humanitarian crisis since World War II in terms of refugees.

It’s unclear whether Trump will go ahead with a total U.S. withdrawal while IS retains even a small presence in Syria.

Since January, when Trump asserted in his State of the Union address that “very close to 100 per cent” of IS territory in Syria and Iraq had been liberated, progress toward extinguishing the extremists’ caliphate, or self-proclaimed state, has ground to a halt and shows no sign of restarting. U.S. warplanes continue to periodically bomb remaining pockets of IS in eastern Syria, but ground operations by U.S. partner forces have slowed.

“We’ve halted forward progress and are essentially attempting to avoid losing territory we’ve gained to date,” said Jennifer Cafarella, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War. She sees two potential solutions: send additional U.S. combat power to eastern Syria to take on IS more directly, or resolve a diplomatic dispute with Turkey that has largely sidelined the main U.S. military partner in Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces.

Now that Trump has upped the ante by attacking Syria directly for the second time in just over a year, Cafarella said in an interview this week, it is possible that Syria and its two main international supporters — Russia and Iran — will retaliate militarily against American forces and their Kurdish and Arab partners in eastern Syria “in an attempt to compel an American withdrawal by raising the cost of continued American involvement.”

The U.S. began bombing IS in Syria in September 2014 and deployed an initial contingent of 50 special operations troops in the country the following year. The anti-IS campaign gained momentum in 2016 and made its biggest gains during Trump’s first year in office.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led military coalition against IS refused this week to say how many IS fighters remain. Col. Ryan Dillon said they are holed up mainly in two places in eastern Syria. He said they are in and around the town of Hajin on the Euphrates River north of Bukamal and in Dashisha near the city of Deir el-Zour. They are “contained” in these areas, he asserted, suggesting they are not in immediate danger of being ousted.

Of concern, Dillon said, are indications that IS is stepping up successful attacks against pro-government fighters elsewhere in Syria.

The Trump administration has been saying in recent months that 98 per cent of IS territory has been liberated, suggesting the campaign was close to final victory, although on April 3 the Army general overseeing the campaign, Joseph Votel, put it differently, saying “well over 90 per cent” of the caliphate had been retaken.

“The situation continues to become more and more complex,” Votel said, alluding in part to the effects of a Turkish incursion into the town of Afrin in northwestern Syria.

The Afrin operation was part of a Turkish plan to drive the main Syrian Kurdish militia, known as the YPG, away from the Turkish border area. Turkey considers the YPG a threat to its national security and an extension of Kurdish insurgents inside Turkey. But the YPG also is America’s main partner in Syria; it forms the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF. Turkey’s advance on Afrin prompted the SDF to shift from fighting IS to confronting Turkey in Afrin.

The result: “We are no longer in an offensive effort on the ground against them (Islamic State),” Defence Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters March 27.

Even so, eliminating IS in Syria remains the goal, he said after Trump announced the missile strikes to punish the Syrian government for its alleged chemical weapons use.

The barrage of 105 missiles launched by the United States, Britain and France last week to destroy elements of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal was designed to deter President Bashar Assad from repeating his alleged use of chlorine gas and perhaps nerve gas on civilians in a Damascus suburb. It was unrelated to the IS problem, except in the sense that it highlighted the jumble of actors involved and the absence of a broad U.S. strategy.

Sen. John McCain, one of the Congress’ most vocal advocates for a fuller U.S. role in Syria, praised Trump for the missile strikes. But he also said the president needs to look beyond defeating IS and stopping further chemical weapons use by Assad to tackle the bigger challenge of regional conflict.

“Airstrikes disconnected from a broader strategy may be necessary, but they alone will not achieve U.S. objectives in the Middle East,” he said.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — The drama of U.S. and allied missiles strikes on Syria has obscured a sobering fact: The U.S.-led campaign to eliminate the Islamic State from Syria has stalled.

The U.S. has 2,000 troops in Syria assisting local Arab and Kurdish fighters against IS, even as President Donald Trump resists deeper U.S. involvement and is eager to withdraw completely in coming months. Trump wants "other people" to deal with Syria, whose civil war has spawned the greatest humanitarian crisis since World War II in terms of refugees.

It's unclear whether Trump will go ahead with a total U.S. withdrawal while IS retains even a small presence in Syria.

Since January, when Trump asserted in his State of the Union address that "very close to 100 percent" of IS territory in Syria and Iraq had been liberated, progress toward extinguishing the extremists' caliphate, or self-proclaimed state, has ground to a halt and shows no sign of restarting. U.S. warplanes continue to periodically bomb remaining pockets of IS in eastern Syria, but ground operations by U.S. partner forces have slowed.

"We've halted forward progress and are essentially attempting to avoid losing territory we've gained to date," said Jennifer Cafarella, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War. She sees two potential solutions: send additional U.S. combat power to eastern Syria to take on IS more directly, or resolve a diplomatic dispute with Turkey that has largely sidelined the main U.S. military partner in Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces.

Now that Trump has upped the ante by attacking Syria directly for the second time in just over a year, Cafarella said in an interview this week, it is possible that Syria and its two main international supporters — Russia and Iran — will retaliate militarily against American forces and their Kurdish and Arab partners in eastern Syria "in an attempt to compel an American withdrawal by raising the cost of continued American involvement."

The U.S. began bombing IS in Syria in September 2014 and deployed an initial contingent of 50 special operations troops in the country the following year. The anti-IS campaign gained momentum in 2016 and made its biggest gains during Trump's first year in office.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led military coalition against IS refused this week to say how many IS fighters remain. Col. Ryan Dillon said they are holed up mainly in two places in eastern Syria. He said they are in and around the town of Hajin on the Euphrates River north of Bukamal and in Dashisha near the city of Deir el-Zour. They are "contained" in these areas, he asserted, suggesting they are not in immediate danger of being ousted.

Of concern, Dillon said, are indications that IS is stepping up successful attacks against pro-government fighters elsewhere in Syria.

The Trump administration has been saying in recent months that 98 percent of IS territory has been liberated, suggesting the campaign was close to final victory, although on April 3 the Army general overseeing the campaign, Joseph Votel, put it differently, saying "well over 90 percent" of the caliphate had been retaken.

"The situation continues to become more and more complex," Votel said, alluding in part to the effects of a Turkish incursion into the town of Afrin in northwestern Syria.

The Afrin operation was part of a Turkish plan to drive the main Syrian Kurdish militia, known as the YPG, away from the Turkish border area. Turkey considers the YPG a threat to its national security and an extension of Kurdish insurgents inside Turkey. But the YPG also is America's main partner in Syria; it forms the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF. Turkey's advance on Afrin prompted the SDF to shift from fighting IS to confronting Turkey in Afrin.

The result: "We are no longer in an offensive effort on the ground against them (Islamic State)," Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters March 27.

Even so, eliminating IS in Syria remains the goal, he said after Trump announced the missile strikes to punish the Syrian government for its alleged chemical weapons use.

The barrage of 105 missiles launched by the United States, Britain and France last week to destroy elements of Syria's chemical weapons arsenal was designed to deter President Bashar Assad from repeating his alleged use of chlorine gas and perhaps nerve gas on civilians in a Damascus suburb. It was unrelated to the IS problem, except in the sense that it highlighted the jumble of actors involved and the absence of a broad U.S. strategy.

Sen. John McCain, one of the Congress' most vocal advocates for a fuller U.S. role in Syria, praised Trump for the missile strikes. But he also said the president needs to look beyond defeating IS and stopping further chemical weapons use by Assad to tackle the bigger challenge of regional conflict.

"Airstrikes disconnected from a broader strategy may be necessary, but they alone will not achieve U.S. objectives in the Middle East," he said.</s>BAGHDAD, April 19 (Reuters) - Iraq on Thursday carried out air strikes on Islamic State positions in Syria a week after Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said his country would defend itself from militant threats across the border.

Iraqi F-16 warplanes crossed into Syria to carry out the strikes after coordination with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government, an Iraqi military spokesman said.

"Carrying out air strikes on Daesh gangs in Syrian territories is because of the dangers posed by said gangs to Iraqi territories and is proof of the improved capabilities of our armed forces," the Iraqi military said in a statement.

Earlier this month, Abadi had said Iraq would "take all necessary measures if they threaten the security of Iraq", referring to the jihadist militants who just three years ago overran a third of Iraq.

The prime minister declared final victory over the ultra hardline group in December but it still poses a threat from pockets along the border with Syria and has continued to carry out ambushes, assassinations and bombings across Iraq.

Iraq currently has good relations with Iran and Russia, Assad's main backers in the seven-year Syrian civil war, while also enjoying strong support from the U.S.-led coalition. (Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein; additional reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; editing by Raya Jalabi/Mark Heinrich)</s>BEIRUT — The Latest on the Syria conflict (all times local):

Iraq says it has launched airstrikes in neighbouring Syria against Islamic State militants.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s office says Iraqi fighter jets launched “lethal” airstrikes against the extremists in an area along the border. It says the militants posed a threat to Iraq, without providing further details.

Syrian and Iraqi forces have driven IS from nearly all the territory it once held, but the extremists have maintained a presence in the remote desert areas along the border. Iraq has carried out airstrikes in Syria against the group in the past.

Syrian state media say hundreds of rebels fighters in a town northeast of Damascus have handed in their weapons and started to leave under an evacuation deal.

Under the agreement, the rebels are allowed to move with their families to opposition-held areas in the country’s north, effectively surrendering their turf to Syrian government forces.

The state SANA news agency says the Army of Islam fighters and their families are leaving the town of Dumayr on Thursday. The report says 1,500 rebels and 3,500 of their next of kin are to leave Dumayr for the town of Jarablus, near the Turkish border.

Dumayr is in the Qalamoun mountains, near the eastern Ghouta region which came under full government control last week after a weeks-long offensive and an alleged chemical weapons attack.</s>BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's air strikes on Islamic State positions in Syria on Thursday were carried out in coordination with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government, an Iraqi military spokesman told Reuters.

The Iraqi air force used F16 jets to cross into Syria and carry out the strikes, Brigadier General Yahya Rasool said.

 

 (Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein; editing by Raya Jalabi)</s>Baku. 5 December. REPORT.AZ/ Britain joined US-led air strikes against Islamic State in Syria on Thursday.

British Tornado jets took off from the Royal Air Force base at Akrotiri in Cyprus before dawn, hours after parliament in London voted 397-223 to support Prime Minister David Cameron’s plan to extend air strikes from Iraq to Syria. Report informs citing the BBC.

Britain said they struck oil fields used to fund ISIS.

‘There are plenty more of these targets throughout eastern, northern Syria which we hope to be striking in the next few days and weeks,’ Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said. Britain would send eight more warplanes to Cyprus to join the missions.

The British contribution forms only a tiny part of US-led Operation Inherent Resolve, which has been bombing Islamic State in Iraq and Syria for more than a year with hundreds of aircraft.

Previously, the Britain participated in strikes on Iraq but not Syria.
Iraq conducts a series of air strikes against an ISIL target in Syria.