US resumes offensive action in Iraq

American warplanes began bombing Islamic militant targets outside the Kurdish city of Irbil on Friday, in the first offensive action by the US in Iraq since it withdrew ground troops in 2011.

Following authority granted by Barack Obama on Thursday, the Pentagon said two FA-18 jets dropped 500-pound laser-guided bombs on fighters with the Islamic State, also known as Isis or Isil.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said the world needed to wake up to the threat posed by the IS group.

Its "campaign of terror against the innocent, including the Yazidi and Christian minorities, and its grotesque targeted acts of violence show all the warning signs of genocide," he said.

 The flight of so many Iraqi’s from the ISIS advance prompted a new statement of condemnation from the UN Security Council late Thursday.

  “The members of the Security Council call on the international community to support the government and people of Iraq and to do all it can to help alleviate the suffering of the population affected by the current conflict in Iraq,” said UK ambassador to the UN, Sir Mark Lyall Grant.

It seems the Bush/Blair legacy continues....