Two dozen Islamic State (ISIS) fighters, including several with suicide bombing vests, were killed or blew themselves up Friday in a daring attack on an Iraqi air force base where 400 American soldiers are stationed.
At least two Iraqi soldiers were killed in the clash, approximately one mile from the area where U.S. soldiers were based. The Americans dispatched drones and Apache helicopters to help Iraqi forces, who overwhelmed the ISIS attackers without aerial assistance,.
All of the ISIS fighters, besides several suicide bombers, were killed in what was considered a well-planned and coordinate attack.
Army Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said, “They were signaling that our advisers were vulnerable, thus — they hope — driving Obama to pull them out.”
Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, a Fox News contributor, said that ISIS is trying to show the “jihadi-world that they’re standing up to the Americans and replying to Obama’s claim that Islamic State has been stopped and turned back.”
The ISIS controls a city near the air base, which separates its forces from Baghdad.
Approximately 2,600 U.S. soldiers and advisers are stationed in Iraq.
Following the ISIS attack on the air base, the U.S.-led strike force carried out more than a dozen aerial bombings of ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria, hitting a rocket system, fighters and tanks.
