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Friday afternoon, the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State covering Iraq, Brett McGurk, tweeted out a quick summary of the day's military action agains the Islamic State (ISIS). It's an interesting list:
1/5 Pentagon: The U.S. military continued to attack ISIL targets near Erbil today.
— Brett McGurk (@brett_mcgurk) August 8, 2014
2/5 Shortly after 10 a.m. EDT, remotely piloted aircraft struck a terrorist mortar position.
— Brett McGurk (@brett_mcgurk) August 8, 2014
3/5 When ISIL fighters returned to the site, they were attacked again and successfully eliminated.
— Brett McGurk (@brett_mcgurk) August 8, 2014
4/5 At approximately 11:20 a.m. EDT, 4 F/A-18 aircraft successfully struck a stationary ISIL convoy of seven vehicles and a mortar position.
— Brett McGurk (@brett_mcgurk) August 8, 2014
5/5 On two runs, each aircraft dropped one laser guided bomb for a total of eight bombs dropped on target neutralizing the mortar & convoy.
— Brett McGurk (@brett_mcgurk) August 8, 2014
The focus on mortars suggests a goal of the US air campaign is to eliminate ISIS' heavy weapons advantage over the Kurdish peshmerga. And, according to one US official who worked on Iraq, ISIS' convoys are one of its key vulnerabilities.
