U.S. aircraft strike ISIS’ artillery in Iraq (Pentagon)

U.S. aircrafts launched strikes against jihadist-held positions in northern Iraq after artillery fire near U.S. personnel, Agence France-Presse reported the Pentagon as saying Friday.
Two US F/A-18 aircraft dropped 225-kilogram laser-guided bombs on a mobile artillery piece near the Kurdish region's capital of Erbil, said Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby.

Iraq’s army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Babaker Zebari, hailed the support of the air strikes, telling AFP that there will “be huge changes on the ground in the coming hours,” as federal troops and Kurdish peshmerga forces push to reclaim large swathes of land after strikes began.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday that “the stakes for Iraq's future can also not be clearer.”

The Islamic State's “campaign of terror against the innocent, including the Christian minority, and its grotesque targeted acts of violence show all the warning signs of genocide,” the top diplomat added.
The strikes come hours after the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) seized control of Iraq’s largest dam north of their hub of Mosul, giving them control over the supply of water and electricity in a vast area, officials said on Friday.
“Mosul dam has been in insurgent hands since last night,” said Holgard Hekmat, spokesman for the Kurdish peshmerga force that previously guarded the key infrastructure. The capture was confirmed by the head of the provincial council of Nineveh, according to Agence France-Presse......................http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/08/08/Obama-authorizes-renewed-airstrikes-in-north-Iraq.html
8/8/14
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