Top Islamic State leaders targeted by US-led air strikes - ABC Online

Updated November 09, 2014 07:17:09

US-led air strikes have targeted a gathering of Islamic State leaders in Iraq in a town near the Syrian border, Al-Hadath television channel said on Saturday.

Two witnesses said an air strike targeted a house where senior Islamic State (IS) officers - possibly including the group's top commander Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi - were meeting, near the western Iraqi border town of al-Qaim.

Witnesses said IS fighters had cleared a hospital so their wounded could be treated, and used loudspeakers to urge residents to donate blood.

Residents said there were unconfirmed reports Islamic State's local leader in the western Iraqi province of Anbar and his deputy were killed.

One US official said air strikes were carried out against a convoy near the northern city of Mosul, about 280 kilometres from al-Qaim, and against small IS units elsewhere, but could not confirm whether the top leader was at the gathering.

Al-Hadath said dozens of people were killed and wounded in the strike in al-Qaim, and Mr Baghdadi's fate was unclear.

Al-Qaim and the neighbouring Syrian town of Albukamal are on a strategic supply route linking territory held by Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

However, Western and Iraqi officials said the air strikes were not enough to defeat the al Qaeda offshoot and Iraq had to improve the performance of its security forces to eliminate the threat from the group, which wants to redraw the map of the Middle East.

President Barack Obama approved sending up to 1,500 more troops to Iraq, roughly doubling the number of US forces on the ground, to advise and retrain Iraqis in their battle against the fundamentalist group.

The Iraqi prime minister's media office said the additional US trainers were welcome but the move, five months after IS seized much of northern Iraq, was belated, state television reported.

The United States spent $25 billion on the Iraqi military during the US occupation that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, and triggered an insurgency that included al Qaeda.

Washington wants Iraq's Shi'ite-led government to revive an alliance with Sunni tribesmen in Anbar province which helped US Marines defeat al Qaeda.

Such an alliance would face a more formidable enemy in Islamic State, which has more firepower and funding.

Reuters

Topics: terrorism, unrest-conflict-and-war, iraq

First posted November 09, 2014 07:15:25