U.S. Begins Airstrikes

U.S. fighter jets struck Islamic State positions in northern Iraq on Friday, the Pentagon announced.

Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said that two F-18 fighters dropped 500-pound laser-guided bombs on a mobile artillery target near Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish region. IS fighters were using the artillery to shell Peshmerga forces defending Erbil.

U.S. airstrikes with drones on ISIS artillery positions near Irbil