Iraq: Iraqi forces, aided by U.S. airstrikes, launch ground offensive to secure dam in Anbar
Iraqi forces battled Sunday to secure the country’s second-largest dam from Islamic State militants after U.S. airstrikes opened the way for a ground offensive, marking an expansion of the American bombing campaign to Anbar, the deadliest province for U.S. troops during the Iraq war.
Iraqi officials said the ground operation, spearheaded by Iraqi counterterrorism forces and backed up by allied tribesmen, troops and local police, was underway Sunday night in the vicinity of Haditha, about 150 miles northwest of Baghdad. There, militants have been attempting to seize control of the city’s strategic hydroelectric dam for months.
The attacks represented a sharp escalation of a U.S. military campaign that began Aug. 8, when President Obama ordered the Pentagon to intervene in Iraq to stem the rapid advance of the Islamic State, a Sunni extremist group that has swept across the north and west of the country.