Obama says tackling Iraq’s insurgency will take time

Monday, 11 August 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

REUTERS: President Barack Obama said on Saturday US air strikes had destroyed arms that Islamic State militants could have used against Iraqi Kurds, but he warned there was no quick fix to a crisis that threatens to tear Iraq apart. Speaking before US warplanes struck militant targets for the second straight day, Obama said it would take more than bombs to restore stability, and criticized Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Shi’ite-led government for failing to empower Iraq’s Sunnis. “I don’t think we’re going to solve this problem in weeks. This is going to take some time,” Obama told a news conference in Washington. Shortly after Obama spoke, US aircraft hit armoured vehicles and other Islamic State targets in an area where militants pose an imminent threat to religious minorities, the US Central Command said.

The four strikes, conducted by a mix of drone aircraft and fighter jets, destroyed several armoured vehicles and armed trucks, Central Command said. Later on Saturday, Central Command said the US military had conducted a third airdrop of food and water to members of Iraq’s Yazidi sect who have taken refuge on Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq after being threatened by the Islamic State. The latest of the missions, which have occurred three nights in a row, involved three US military cargo aircraft escorted by fighter jets, it said. Islamic State has captured wide swaths of northern Iraq since June, executing non-Sunni Muslim captives, displacing tens of thousands of people and drawing the first US air strikes in the region since Washington withdrew troops in 2011. After routing Kurdish forces this week, the militants are just 30 minutes’ drive from Arbil, the Iraqi Kurdish capital, which up to now has been spared the sectarian bloodshed that has scarred other parts of Iraq for a decade. Obama said Washington would continue to provide military assistance and advice to Baghdad and Kurdish forces, but he repeatedly stressed the importance of Iraq’s forming its own inclusive government.