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Second Consecutive Day of Airstrikes by Syria Is Aimed at Shoring Up Iraqi Armed Forces
BAGHDAD—Syrian warplanes carried out airstrikes in western Iraq, stepping up the military role of the U.S. adversary in helping Baghdad's Shiite-dominated government fight Sunni insurgents.
The strikes on Tuesday came as the Pentagon announced that the first 130 members of a potential 300 U.S. military advisers were in place in Baghdad to start assessing and improving the Iraqi army's ability to counter the gains of rebels led by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham.
At least 50 people were killed and more than 132 others wounded Tuesday when Hellfire missiles fired from what appeared to be Syrian government planes hit a municipal building, a market and a bank in the district of Al Rutba, according to an Anbar provincial official and Mohammed Al Qubaisi, a doctor in the district's main hospital.
Those people said Tuesday was the second consecutive day of airstrikes by Syria, which has joined Iran in aiding the embattled Baghdad government against the ISIS-led rebels. Tehran has deployed special forces to help protect the capital and the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala, which Shiites revere.
There was no confirmation from Syrian authorities or Iraqi military air force officials that Syrian fighters had entered Iraqi airspace. Iraq's own air capabilities are decidedly limited and wouldn't be capable of carrying out such an attack. Reports of the Syrian attack were widely mentioned in the Iraqi media.
U.S. State Department and military officials weren't able to confirm the reports of the Syrian attack either. Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman, said the U.S. was trying to do so.
"It wouldn't be surprising," she said. "The Syrian regime has bombed marketplaces and civilians many, many times."
U.S. officials have previously confirmed strikes by Syrian fighter planes and helicopters on Iraqi border crossings controlled by ISIS on multiple occasions in recent weeks. Tuesday's strikes, if confirmed, would be the first to incur a large number of civilian casualties.
In recent days, Sunni militants have seized key towns in Anbar province, a Sunni Muslim stronghold, giving them unchecked sway over hundreds of miles of territory spanning the Iraqi-Syrian border as they fight to carve out an Islamic emirate.
Iraq's border with Syria is highly porous and has been dominated in the past week by ISIS fighters on either side of it. In March 2013, al Qaeda fighters in Iraq—predecessors to today's ISIS—slaughtered more than 50 Syrian soldiers who had wandered across the border with Iraq.
The Baghdad government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has had good relations for years with the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad to the west and with Iran to the east. The three governments, like that of the U.S., see a common enemy in the Sunni fighters of ISIS.
Abdullah Al Shimmari, the member of the Anbar Tribal Military Council, which is aligned with ISIS, denounced Syrian-Iranian involvement in Iraq and vowed retaliation.
"We are now facing aggressive Iranian attacks at Arab hands," Mr. Al Shimmari said. "Our response to that will be soon."
Following a two-week long siege and failed negotiations with Iraqi government security forces, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham militant group has taken control of the Beiji oil refinery.
As foreign supporters undertook to buttress Mr. Maliki's government, the country's local tribal leaders emerged further as key political players in helping to stem bloodshed and restore a modicum of stability in areas of Iraq once controlled by Baghdad.
In the western city of Haditha, tribal leaders were in talks on Tuesday with ISIS militants to negotiate the surrender of Iraqi security forces and to prevent damage to a nearby dam on the Euphrates that generates hydroelectric power for large parts of the country.
ISIS controls towns to the east and west of Haditha, leaving the city and the troops deployed there virtually surrounded.
The rebels were demanding the turnover of dozens of veterans of the U.S.-sponsored forces—known collectively as the Awakening movement—that successfully repelled al Qaeda fighters in 2007 and 2008, local security sources said.
The mediation in Haditha was taking place only hours after lLocal tribal leaders negotiated an agreement late Monday for the peaceful surrender of the last of the Iraqi soldiers trapped in the oil refinery at Beiji, about 130 miles north of Baghdad, a tribal leader in Beiji said by telephone.
As government troops surrendered their weapons to ISIS and left for the semiautonomous northern Kurdistan region, Sunni militants celebrated at the plant and in the nearby town of Beiji, shooting their rifles into the air and using loudspeakers to proclaim their victory, residents said.
State-run Al Iraqiyya television station, in reports aired Tuesday, continued to insist that the refinery was under the control of Baghdad and would "start to operate again within days."
At least 1,075 people, many of them civilians, have been killed in the past 2½ weeks during fighting in the provinces of Nineveh, Diyala and Salah Al Din, the U.N. said Tuesday.
BAGHDAD—Syrian warplanes carried out airstrikes in western Iraq, stepping up the military role of the U.S. adversary in helping Baghdad's Shiite-dominated government fight Sunni insurgents.
The strikes on Tuesday came as the Pentagon announced that the first 130 members of a potential 300 U.S. military advisers were in place in Baghdad to start assessing and improving the Iraqi army's ability to counter the gains of rebels led by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham.
At least 50 people were killed and more than 132 others wounded Tuesday when Hellfire missiles fired from what appeared to be Syrian government planes hit a municipal building, a market and a bank in the district of Al Rutba, according to an Anbar provincial official and Mohammed Al Qubaisi, a doctor in the district's main hospital.
Those people said Tuesday was the second consecutive day of airstrikes by Syria, which has joined Iran in aiding the embattled Baghdad government against the ISIS-led rebels. Tehran has deployed special forces to help protect the capital and the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala, which Shiites revere.
There was no confirmation from Syrian authorities or Iraqi military air force officials that Syrian fighters had entered Iraqi airspace. Iraq's own air capabilities are decidedly limited and wouldn't be capable of carrying out such an attack. Reports of the Syrian attack were widely mentioned in the Iraqi media.
U.S. State Department and military officials weren't able to confirm the reports of the Syrian attack either. Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman, said the U.S. was trying to do so.
"It wouldn't be surprising," she said. "The Syrian regime has bombed marketplaces and civilians many, many times."
U.S. officials have previously confirmed strikes by Syrian fighter planes and helicopters on Iraqi border crossings controlled by ISIS on multiple occasions in recent weeks. Tuesday's strikes, if confirmed, would be the first to incur a large number of civilian casualties.
In recent days, Sunni militants have seized key towns in Anbar province, a Sunni Muslim stronghold, giving them unchecked sway over hundreds of miles of territory spanning the Iraqi-Syrian border as they fight to carve out an Islamic emirate.
Iraq's border with Syria is highly porous and has been dominated in the past week by ISIS fighters on either side of it. In March 2013, al Qaeda fighters in Iraq—predecessors to today's ISIS—slaughtered more than 50 Syrian soldiers who had wandered across the border with Iraq.
The Baghdad government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has had good relations for years with the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad to the west and with Iran to the east. The three governments, like that of the U.S., see a common enemy in the Sunni fighters of ISIS.
Abdullah Al Shimmari, the member of the Anbar Tribal Military Council, which is aligned with ISIS, denounced Syrian-Iranian involvement in Iraq and vowed retaliation.
"We are now facing aggressive Iranian attacks at Arab hands," Mr. Al Shimmari said. "Our response to that will be soon."
Following a two-week long siege and failed negotiations with Iraqi government security forces, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham militant group has taken control of the Beiji oil refinery.
As foreign supporters undertook to buttress Mr. Maliki's government, the country's local tribal leaders emerged further as key political players in helping to stem bloodshed and restore a modicum of stability in areas of Iraq once controlled by Baghdad.
In the western city of Haditha, tribal leaders were in talks on Tuesday with ISIS militants to negotiate the surrender of Iraqi security forces and to prevent damage to a nearby dam on the Euphrates that generates hydroelectric power for large parts of the country.
ISIS controls towns to the east and west of Haditha, leaving the city and the troops deployed there virtually surrounded.
The rebels were demanding the turnover of dozens of veterans of the U.S.-sponsored forces—known collectively as the Awakening movement—that successfully repelled al Qaeda fighters in 2007 and 2008, local security sources said.
The mediation in Haditha was taking place only hours after lLocal tribal leaders negotiated an agreement late Monday for the peaceful surrender of the last of the Iraqi soldiers trapped in the oil refinery at Beiji, about 130 miles north of Baghdad, a tribal leader in Beiji said by telephone.
As government troops surrendered their weapons to ISIS and left for the semiautonomous northern Kurdistan region, Sunni militants celebrated at the plant and in the nearby town of Beiji, shooting their rifles into the air and using loudspeakers to proclaim their victory, residents said.
State-run Al Iraqiyya television station, in reports aired Tuesday, continued to insist that the refinery was under the control of Baghdad and would "start to operate again within days."
At least 1,075 people, many of them civilians, have been killed in the past 2½ weeks during fighting in the provinces of Nineveh, Diyala and Salah Al Din, the U.N. said Tuesday.
