Here’s The Part Of The ‘Islamic State’ The US Just Bombed
Armin Rosen
BusinessInsider.com
Aug. 8, 2014
The rapid escalation of the crisis in Iraq has drawn in the U.S. On Thursday, an offensive by Islamist militants succeeded in repelling the Kurdish peshmerga from the Mosul Dam, at the same time ISIS militants closed in on Erbil — home to hundreds of U.S. advisers and personnel, as well as the leadership of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government.
Meanwhile, ISIS’s advance and a series of reported atrocities against Iraq’s Yazidi religious minority had stranded tens of thousands of members of the group atop a mountain near Sinjar, west of Erbil.
ISIS was apparently carrying out an act of genocide at the same time it threatened the U.S.-allied leadership of Iraq’s last remaining bulwark of stability. The Obama administration felt it had no choice but to act.
As this map demonstrates, the U.S. is attempting to lessen the humanitarian crisis along the Syrian-Iraqi border while ensuring that Erbil doesn’t fall to ISIS’ advance. The aims are limited at the moment — the U.S.’ goal seems to be to stop ISIS’s offensive, rather than rolling it back.
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