Iraq violence continues as US sends helicopters to attack IS

A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden armoured vehicle into houses used by Shiite militiamen north of the Iraqi city of Samarra, killing at least 17 people, police and medical sources said Tuesday.

The attack took place in Abbasiya, around 15 kilometres north of Samarra, on Monday evening and completely destroyed two houses, the sources said. Thirteen people were also wounded.

The town is 135 kilometres north of Baghdad and resides in the so-called Sunni triangle. 

On the eve of the violence that raged north of Baghdad, the US military announced that it had begun flying Apache helicopters against IS militants in Iraq for the first time.

US troops flew helicopters against IS fighters on Sunday and again on Monday as they struck at mortar teams and other units near Fallujah, said a spokesman for Central Command, which is responsible for US forces in the Middle East. 

“This was the first time rotary wing aircraft were used in coordination with and in support of ISF [Iraqi Security Force] operations,” Army Major Curtis Kellogg said in an email. “The Iraqi government asked for support with this capability near Fallujah to push back [Islamic State].” 

US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the helicopters that were used were Apache attack helicopters, reported Alarabiya. 

Richard Fontaine, president of the Centre for a New American Security, a think tank, said the military’s decision to use Apaches “demonstrates that they’ve only achieved limited results with the air strikes from fighters and bombers and drones.” 

Christopher Harmer, a former Navy aviator who now works as an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, said it was a significant escalation in the level of risk being taken by US troops assisting the Iraqi military.

“Fixed-wing aircraft flying at 30,000 feet (9,000 meters) are completely immune from the type of weapons that [IS] fighters have, but a helicopter is not,” Harmer said. 

“When you’re flying a helicopter 150 feet (50 meters) above the ground, that helicopter can be shot with a rocket-propelled grenade or a heavy machine gun ... so, yes, it is much more dangerous,” he added.

Army Colonel Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said helicopters would be much more effective at supporting Iraqi ground troops directly engaged in combat with IS fighters because they fly lower and more slowly and are more capable of identifying individual targets. 

“If you’ve got Iraqi army fighting against [Islamic State] fighters, it’s much better to have helicopters supporting the Iraqi army than fixed-wing aircraft,” he said.

Warren said the military considered the risk of flying helicopters before deploying them. He rejected any notion that using helicopters amounted to mission creep. “The mission is still the same. This is using the correct tool for the job,” he said.

However, Fontaine dismissed these statements, saying that the administration’s effort to draw a line between putting combat troops on the ground in Iraq and providing air support for Iraqi forces was rapidly becoming “a distinction without a huge amount of difference.” 

“You know 1,600 troops in Iraq is boots on the ground, and air strikes and helicopter assaults is combat,” Fontaine said.

Targeting IS in Iraq

The death toll in Iraq has continued to creep upward. Iraqi security and medical sources announced Monday that more than 50 IS militants had been killed in a US-led airstrike raid over Nineveh.

Also on Monday 24 people, including women and children, were killed in air strikes over the town of Hait in the Iraqi Anbar province, reported Al Jazeera.

Anbar's operations chief Rashid Falih additionally reported that at least 30 IS militants were killed by US-led airstrikes east of Fallujah. A further 18 IS militants were killed in clashes with security forces east of Fallujah, Iraqi sources told Reuters. 

Further south, Sabah Karhout - who heads the Anbar provincial governing council - confirmed that US-led airstrikes targeted IS positions near the Raoud Bridge, north of Anabar. He said that 12 IS militants were killed.  

Karhout demanded that Baghdad provide "immediate support and assistance to…police [who] are currently waging a vicious battle” against Islamic State, reported Sot Al Iraq, an Iraqi news outlet.

Karhout also told the Anadolu Agency that the military capabilities of IS in the Iraq outweigh those of the Iraqi security forces, saying that the US-led coalition should launch a stronger offensive against IS militants. 

According to Karhout, IS militants have made considerable progress, taking over many areas in the Anbar province recently.

Falih also announced on Monday that the senior IS leader Shaker Waheeb was killed along with a number of his aids near Kabisa area in west of the province.

He told IraqiNews: “The Army Forces with aerial support from the international coalition have managed to kill the senior [Islamic State] leader Shaker Waheeb and 10 other senior leaders of the [Islamic State] group in Kabisa, 70 km west of al-Ramadi.”

Shaker Waheeb is the assistant of the IS leader al-Baghdadi, and survived with him on 19 August during US drone strikes that targeted them in Nineveh.

Throughout Iraq and Syria, there have been reports that Islamic State militants have altered their tactics to blunt the effect of US-led airstrikes. The militants have dispersed positions to present less of a target and moved from exposed bases to areas with considerable civilian populations, observers have said. 

In addition to the US-led coalition, the Iraqi air force has also bombarded insurgent positions in Iraq, resulting in numerous civilian deaths and drawing severe criticism from human rights groups and residents in the targeted areas.

US, UK and Belgian air forces conducted six airstrikes in Syria and Iraq on IS targets, the US Defence Department disclosed on Monday.

The department said in a statement that US military forces had also used remotely piloted aircraft to conduct three airstrikes against IS positions in Iraq.

Meanwhile, Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that military action against Islamic State militants is "essential" and the US would turn away from the threat "at our peril."

Clinton, a potential 2016 presidential contender, said during a speech in Ottawa at a Canada2020 think tank event, that the fight against militants will be a long-term struggle and that an information war on social media is needed, as well as an air war.

Clinton said there is bipartisan agreement on the dealing with Islamic State militants, which is to degrade and defeat them.