Syria Carries Out Air Strikes Inside Iraq
June 26, 2014
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki confirmed today that Syrian jets carried out air strikes on Islamist militants inside Iraq’s border with Syria. Speaking to a BBC correspondent, Prime Minister Maliki also declared that he welcomed the air strikes as it left both countries “winners.” Sources in western Iraq have reported that on June 24, Syrian jets attacked positions held by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) and that at least 30 people were killed. ISIS militants seek to establish a Sunni caliphate straddling the Syrian-Iraqi border to be ruled under strict Shari`ah law.
Nouri Kamel al-Maliki became prime minister of Iraq in 2006. (AP/Wide World)
International affairs experts note that the attacks align Maliki and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against a common enemy. The alliance comes as Iran and the United States are enlarging their presence in Iraq. (Iran, like Iraq, is largely Shi`ite.) Some 300 U.S. military advisers arrived in Baghdad this week, and American surveillance drones are flying over northern Iraq. Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, also arrived in Baghdad this week to survey Iraqi military defenses and the Shi`ite militias that he has armed and trained. A senior Iraqi intelligence official told a BBC correspondent that Iran is supplying Iraqi forces with weapons–including heavy machine guns, rockets, and multiple rocket launchers.
Additional World Book articles:
- Umayyad caliphate
- Sadr, Muqtada al-
- Iraq War
- Kurdistan
- Iraq 2012 (a Back in Time article)
- Iraq 2013 (a Back in Time article)
- Syria 2013 (a Back in Time article)
- Syria: The Roots of a Rebellion (a special report)
