US bombs IS near Baghdad for first time, in talks with Sunni tribal leaders

US warplanes carried out their first air strike on the Islamic State near Baghdad, as world diplomats from Paris and tribal leaders at a hotel outside of Baghdad pledged on Monday to support Iraq in its fight against the militants.

The United States early last month began air strikes against IS positions in northern Iraq, but Monday's announcement that the campaign had targeted militants near the Iraqi capital marks an escalation in the scope of the mission.

It comes less than a week after US President Barack Obama, in a primetime television address to the nation, ordered a "relentless" war against the Islamic State, including air strikes in Syria and expanded operations in Iraq to "destroy" the marauding militant group.

"US military forces continued to attack ISIL (IS) terrorists in Iraq, employing attack and fighter aircraft to conduct two air strikes Sunday and Monday in support of Iraqi security forces near Sinjar and southwest of Baghdad," US Central Command said in a statement.

"The air strike southwest of Baghdad was the first strike taken as part of our expanded efforts beyond protecting our own people and humanitarian missions to hit ISIL targets as Iraqi forces go on offense, as outlined in the president's speech last Wednesday."

The strikes destroyed six IS vehicles near Sinjar and an IS fighting position southwest of Baghdad that had been firing on Iraqi forces.  

They bring the number of US air strikes across Iraq to 162.

'Any means' 

The strikes came as representatives from about 30 countries and international organisations, including the United States, Russia and China, met in Paris to discuss the crisis triggered when IS overran large areas of Iraq and Syria, carrying out beheadings and forced religious conversions.

The savage beheading at the weekend of a Briton, the third Western hostage to be executed on camera, raised the stakes in the battle against IS, who have declared a caliphate and have as many as 31,500 fighters, according to CIA sources.

In a joint statement, diplomats vowed to support Baghdad "by any means necessary, including appropriate military assistance, in line with the needs expressed by the Iraqi authorities, in accordance with international law and without jeopardising civilian security."

They stressed that IS extremists were "a threat not only to Iraq but also to the entire international community" and underscored the "urgent need" to remove them from Iraq, where they control some 40 percent of the territory.

The Paris statement made no mention of Syria, where extremists hold a quarter of the country and where Bashar al-Assad's government still had friends around the Paris conference table, including Russia.

US Secretary of State John Kerry, attending the talks, stressed again that "we're not going to coordinate with the Syrians."

However he added that Obama had made it clear that "he will hunt down ISIL (Islamic State) wherever they may be, and that includes Syria."

Asked by reporters if Obama is prepared to retaliate against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces should they attack American aircraft, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said, "it won’t surprise you to know that there are contingencies related to self-defence when it comes to these sorts of rules of engagement."

A senior Obama administration official was more direct. He told The Associated Press that the US would hit back against Syrian forces if they fired on U.S. aircraft.

'No time to lose' 

On the ground in Iraq, sporadic clashes broke out near the town of Dhuluiyah, north of Baghdad, where security forces and allied tribesmen prepared for an operation against IS-led militants.

The area would appear to be the target of the next major drive against IS in Iraq, after a successful operation to break the siege of the town of Amerli farther north.

Armed Sunni factions and tribal leaders in talks with the Americans would be incorporated into a security force, like a national guard, Reuters reported. 

The plan, which is reminiscent of the "Awakening" movement that drove al-Qaeda from the country six years ago, would decentralise power from Baghdad and address Sunni concerns of oppression by the current national security forces which are Shia dominated, according to the report. 

There are reportedly 32,000 men who fought during the Awakening that are now ready to battle IS, Ahmed Abu Risha, a tribal leader who fought al-Qaeda in Iraq, told Reuters. An Iraqi security official put the total number of potential tribal and Sunni volunteer fighters at 60,000.

Just hours ahead of the conference on Monday, France's defence minister announced that Paris was joining Britain in carrying out reconnaissance flights in support of the ongoing US air campaign.

Shortly afterwards, two French Rafale fighter jets took off from the Al-Dhafra base in the United Arab Emirates.

And in Brussels, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen urged military action, calling IS "a group of terrorists with whom there is no chance whatsoever to negotiate."

The Paris meeting was the latest in a series of frantic diplomatic efforts to build a broad global coalition against IS, and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said meetings would come "thick and fast" ahead of a UN general assembly next week.

Ten Arab states including Saudi Arabia are among the countries backing the US-led coalition, and Australia has pledged 600 troops.

"We are not building a military coalition for an invasion... but for a transformation as well as for the elimination of ISIL," Kerry told reporters, using an alternative name for IS. "We are fighting an ideology, not a regime."

However, Iran, which was not invited to the conference, said it had rejected US overtures to help in the fight against the militants.

Iran, like Iraq, is majority Shiite, while IS is made up of Sunni fighters who target Shiite Muslims.