Iraq ( U.S. Targets Iraqi Jihadists with 2nd Round of Airstrikes )

WASHINGTON – The United States carried out a second round of airstrikes against Islamic State forces near the northern Iraqi city of Irbil, the Pentagon said late Friday.

The additional missions were ordered “to help defend the city where U.S. personnel are assisting the government of Iraq,” the Defense Department spokesman, Rear Adm. John Kirby, said in a statement.

Dozens of U.S. diplomats and military advisers are based in Irbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

Drones were used to strike a “terrorist mortar position,” eliminating a number of IS fighters, before four F/A-18 jets were dispatched against a convoy and a second mortar position outside Irbil, Kirby said.

“The aircraft executed two planned passes. On both runs, each aircraft dropped one laser-guided bomb, making a total of eight bombs dropped on target, neutralizing the mortar and convoy,” the Pentagon spokesman said.

In the initial round of strikes earlier Friday, two F/A-18s bombed IS artillery pieces.

The jets took off from the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush, on station in the Persian Gulf.

Before the bombing runs, cargo planes escorted by fighters dropped food and water to nearly 200,000 civilians stranded on Mount Sinjar in northwestern Iraq.

The refugees are mostly Christians and Kurds of the Yazidi community fleeing before the advance of IS, which views Yazidis as heretics and has given Christians in the areas it controls a choice between converting to Islam or paying a special tax.

“When we face a situation like we do on that mountain – with innocent people facing the prospect of violence on a horrific scale, when we have a mandate to help – in this case, a request from the Iraqi government – and when we have the unique capabilities to help avert a massacre, then I believe the United States of America cannot turn a blind eye,” President Barack Obama said Thursday night, announcing the authorization for airstrikes.

Thousands of Christian families fled their homes Thursday after IS militants seized several areas in the northern province of Nineveh, including Qaraqosh, the largest Christian town in Iraq.

IS, which controls parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria, has proclaimed an Islamic caliphate.