President Barack Obama speaking as he meets in New York with representatives of the five Arab nations that participated in or supported air strikes against Islamic State targets in Syria, yesterday.
Reuters
The US and its Arab allies bombed Syria for the first time yesterday, killing scores of Islamic State fighters and members of a separate Al Qaeda-linked group, opening a new front against militants.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) said Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates participated in or supported the strikes against Islamic State targets.
US President Barack Obama said in a televised statement that the breadth of the coalition, including the five Arab states, showed the US was not alone.
The White House said some of the strikes had been conducted to disrupt an Al Qaeda affiliate known as the Khorasan Group which it said had been plotting an imminent attack either in the US or in Europe.
“Once again, it must be clear to anyone who would plot against America and do Americans harm that we will not tolerate safe havens for terrorists who threaten our people,” Obama said before leaving the White House for the UN in New York, where he held more talks to enlarge his alliance.
Warplanes and ship-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles struck dozens of targets including fighters, training compounds, headquarters and command and control facilities, storage sites, a finance centre, trucks and armed vehicles, CENTCOM said.
“I can tell you that the strikes were only the beginning,” Rear Admiral John Kirby, a US Defence Department spokesman, told reporters. The first attacks had been “very successful”, he said, but gave few details and would not discuss casualties.
Washington also said US forces had acted alone to launch eight strikes in another area of Syria on the Khorasan Group, which American officials have described in recent days as posing a threat similar to that from Islamic State.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war in Syria, said at least 70 Islamic State fighters were killed in strikes that hit at least 50 targets in the provinces of Raqqa, Deir al-Zor and Hasakah.
The air attacks fulfil Obama’s pledge to strike in Syria against the Islamic State militant group that has seized swathes of Syria and Iraq.
The Pentagon said the US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, had informed Syria’s envoy in advance of the strikes but there had been no co-ordination and no communication between the two countries’ armed forces.
