No plans by USA to increase airstrikes in Iraq, says US official

Baghdad (IraqiNews.com)-Asenior Pentagon planning officer expects the present US air strikes in Iraq to have minimal and fleeting effect on the forces of the Islamic State (Isis) that have overrun a lot of the nation.

“In the immediate regions exactly where we have focused our strikes, we’ve had a really temporary effect and we may well have blunted some tactical decisions to move in these directions, additional east to Irbil,” Army Lt Gen William Mayville told reporters on Monday, giving a dour view of the “limited strikes” president Barack Obama authorized on Thursday.

“What I count on Isil to do is to appear for other factors to do, to choose up and move elsewhere. So I in no way want to suggest that we have successfully contained or that we are somehow breaking the momentum of the threat posed by Isil.” Isil is the acronym for Isis favored by the US government.

The air strikes, now in their fourth day and nevertheless anything much less than a concerted air campaign, have bought US-backed Kurdish irregular forces, recognized as Peshmerga, “time to fortify their defensive positions” outdoors the regional capital of Irbil, said Mayville, the director of operations for the Pentagon’s Joint Employees, and have slowed Isis’ advance toward the crucial city.

Beyond that, said Mayville, who commanded a brigade during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the strikes “are unlikely to influence Isil’s overall abilities or its operations in other areas of Iraq and Syria”.

Mayville, briefing Pentagon reporters, offered a markedly downcast assessment, notable coming from a military superior recognized more than the past 13 years for confidently predicting success in Iraq and Afghanistan. He spoke shortly just before Obama was scheduled to challenge remarks on Iraq.

As has been extended predicted by military critics of a bombing campaign, Mayville said Isis was already changing its tactics in response to the air strikes, particularly about Mt Sinjar, where on Saturday US warplanes attacked Isis positions surrounding the mountain exactly where tens of thousands of Iraqi Yazidis have taken a tenuous refuge.

“Where they have been in the open, they are now starting to dissipate and to hide amongst the people today, so the targeting of this – of these forces trying to impact a siege around the mountain – the targeting of this is going to develop into more complicated,” he said. /End/