Launching airstrikes against Sunni militants in northern Iraq is aimed as much at supporting the Kurdish militia, a staunch U.S. ally for the past two decades, as it is at protecting U.S. personnel and preventing humanitarian disaster, analysts and diplomats say. The extremist Islamic State group has routed the Iraqi army to seize much of western and central Iraq, including the country’s second-largest city of Mosul. Now, their offensive has brought the militants into striking distance of Irbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, where dozens of U.S. diplomats and military staff are based. The surge also has cut off Christian and Yazidi religious communities who relied on...
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