US fighter jets bomb militant targets in Iraq: Pentagon

[email protected] (CD Network)
August 8, 2014

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Washington, Aug 8: The United States has conducted its first airstrikes against ISIL terrorists in northern Iraq, the Pentagon has announced.

The Pentagon said two FA-18 fighter jets dropped 500-pound laser-guided bombs on the militants near the Kurdish city of Irbil on Friday.

Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said the terrorists were using artillery to shell Kurdish Peshmerga forces defending Irbil and threatening US personnel in the city.

The decision to carry out airstrikes was taken by US Central Command commander Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, following authority granted by President Barack Obama on Thursday.

"As the president made clear, the United States military will continue to take direct action against ISIS when they threaten our personnel and facilities,” Kirby said in a statement.

Obama, in a statement delivered at the White House late on Thursday, announced that he had authorized the military to conduct targeted airstrikes to prevent the advance of the ISIL, to aid Peshmerga fighters and refugees under siege from the terrorist group.

“I've said before, the United States cannot and should not intervene every time there's a crisis in the world,” Obama said.

But he said that when the US is faced with a situation in which innocent people are “facing the prospect of violence on a horrific scale,” Washington cannot “turn a blind eye.”

“We can act, carefully and responsibly, to prevent a potential act of genocide,” he said. “I've, therefore, authorized targeted airstrikes, if necessary, to help forces in Iraq as they fight to break the siege of Mount Sinjar and protect the civilians trapped there.”

Between 10,000 and 40,000 Iraqis have escaped to the mountains after ISIL militants overran the town of Sinjar, the historical home of the Kurdish minority Yazidi that had also served as a refuge for other groups.

The situation is dire as those people risk being slaughtered by terrorists if they choose to return to their villages or stay in the mountains and slowly die of thirst and hunger. About 40 children have already died from the heat and dehydration, according to the United Nations.

ISIL militants have terrorized entire communities, including Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, Christians, Yazidis and others, as they continue their advances in Iraq.

An estimated 100,000 Christians have also been forced to flee from Nineveh Province into the Kurdistan region.

“Most of the displaced are now living in the open and face the threat of death because of scorching heat and lack of water and food,” said Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako, adding, “It is a humanitarian disaster.”

Both White House and Pentagon officials have previously indicated that the United States would not take any military action in Iraq until Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki steps down.

Last month, the US sent more than 800 special operations troops to Iraq, including a contingent now stationed in Erbil, within the Kurdistan region.

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News Network
May 3,2024

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US riot police have dismantled an anti-war and pro-Palestinian protest camp at the University of California at Los Angeles, a day after it was attacked by pro-Israel supporters.

At least 200 pro-Palestine protesters were arrested during the pre-dawn raid, led by a phalanx of California Highway Patrol officers carrying shields and batons, early on Thursday.

The protesters tried to block the officers' advance by their sheer numbers, shouting "push them back", while hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists who assembled outside the tent city were heard chanting "Shame on you" at the police.

According to estimates of local television station KABC-TV, 300 to 500 protesters were hunkered down inside the camp, while about 2,000 more had gathered outside the barricades in support.

The raid took place about a day after police watched on as pro-Israel groups violently attacked the encampment. Late Tuesday night, masked counter-demonstrators mounted a surprise assault on the camp, using sticks to beat the peaceful activists.

The assault went on for three hours into early Wednesday morning until police intervened and restored order.

The authorities’ slow response drew wide criticism from political leaders, including a spokesperson for California Governor Gavin Newsom who said "limited and delayed campus law enforcement response" to the unrest is "unacceptable."

The Pro-Palestine demonstrations began at Columbia University in New York City on April 17, and have spread across other campuses in the US in a student movement unlike any other this century.

US police arrested about 2,200 people during pro-Palestinian protests at college campuses across the country in recent weeks, the Associated Press reported.

A tally by the news agency recorded at least 56 incidents of arrests at 43 different US colleges or universities since April 18.

The students are calling for an end to Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and demanding schools divest from companies that support the Israeli regime.

Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime's decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.

Tel Aviv has also blocked water, food, and electricity to Gaza, plunging the coastal strip into a humanitarian crisis.

Since the start of the offensive, the Israeli regime has killed at least 34,596 Palestinians and injured 77,816 others.

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News Network
April 28,2024

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Students in Paris blocked access to a campus building at a French university on Friday, as pro-Palestine demonstrations reach Europe.

The students occupied the central campus building of the Paris Institute of Political Studies, known as Sciences Po, and dozens of others blocked its entrance, echoing protest action at American universities.

Students inspired by Gaza solidarity encampments at campuses in the United States blocked access to a campus building at the prestigious French university on Friday.

They blocked the entrance with trash cans, wooden platforms and other items.

The occupation of the Paris university campus came after police broke up a separate protest at the university’s amphitheater outside one of its Paris campuses.

Scores of student protesters gathered at the building’s windows, chanting slogans and holding placards reading “We are all Palestinians,” in defiance of administrators who students say called the police on their peers two days earlier.

Pro-Palestinian student protesters had occupied the amphitheater outside one of the university’s Paris campuses on Wednesday evening.

The US-style student protests, which began over the months-long Israeli regime’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, kicked off in the United States and have now spread to European capitals as well as Australia.

In the German capital Berlin, several people were arrested as police violently cleared a camp of Gaza war protesters at the German parliament.

Pro-Palestinian activists are demanding a permanent ceasefire, an end to the Israeli atrocities, and an arms embargo of the Tel Aviv regime.

The Israeli regime launched the war on Gaza on October 7 last year. The genocidal war has killed more than 34,356 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

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News Network
April 28,2024

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Campuses of several US Universities have been witnessing massive protests with the students seeking a ceasefire in Israel's war with Hamas. Police have arrested over 550 protesters and some universities are witnessing violent crackdown of protests by the ruthless cops. 

Law enforcement officials at the behest of college administrators have deployed tasers and tear gas against students protesters at Atlanta's Emory University, even though the protests have been largely peaceful, say activists and media personnel present at the spot.

Emil' Keme, professor of English and Indigenous studies, at the University said that the scene reminded him of the civil war in Guatemala as a teenager.

"Police immediately began to force people to move. I felt like I was in a war zone, with all the police and their weapons, the rubber bullets. We were pushed away," Mr Keme told the Guardian describing what happened as soon as cops entered the Emory campus.

“Police took the student next to me, pushed an older lady nearby and then pushed me.”

Student protesters say they are expressing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, where the confirmed death toll has topped 34,305, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. They want universities to cut their investments in everything tied to Israel and weapons that fuel the war in Gaza. That means funds run by BlackRock, Google as well as Amazon's cloud service, Lockheed Martin and even Airbnb.

Video circulated widely on social media shows two women who identified themselves as professors being detained, with one of them slammed to the ground by one officer as a second officer then pushes her chest and face onto a concrete sidewalk.

Atlanta police and Georgia troopers are leading a joint operation within the campus to dismantle the tents and camps the activists have set up at the school's quadrangle. Within minutes of the authorities entering the campus, 28 people, 20 of whom were "Emory community members", had been arrested, the institute said in a statement.

The school president said that the videos of police clashing with the students "are shocking" and that he is "horrified horrified that members of our community had to experience and witness such interactions."

The university's response was likely the quickest show of police force in response to a divestment protest among the dozens nationwide that have occurred in recent weeks. It was also probably the only one where pepper balls, stun guns and rubber bullets were used.

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