Friday 08 August 2014 16.02 The Pentagon has said US aircraft have launched strikes against extremist positions in northern Iraq after artillery fire near US personnel.
Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby, writing on Twitter, said US forces struck after artillery fire against Kurdish forces defending the key city of Arbil where US diplomats are based.
The US operation came a day after US President Barack Obama authorised air strikes and humanitarian supply drops to prevent a "genocide" by Islamist extremists against minority groups in northern Iraq.
Mr Obama said: "We can act, carefully and responsibly, to prevent a potential act of genocide."
He was referring to the attacks by Islamic State fighters against the besieged Yazidi minority, thousands of whom are stranded on a mountain in northern Iraq.
Mr Obama added: "I therefore authorised targeted air strikes if necessary to help forces in Iraq as they fight to break the siege and protect the civilians trapped there."
He said US forces had dropped food and water to Iraqis racing to flee the Islamic State fighters.
"Earlier this week, one Iraqi in the area cried to the world, there is no one coming to help. Well, today America is coming to help," Mr Obama said.
"When innocent people are facing the prospect of violence on a horrific scale, 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."
Mr Obama, who rose to political prominence as an outspoken critic of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, said he was not sending back ground forces.
"As commander in chief, I will not allow the United States to be dragged into fighting another war in Iraq," he said.
"And so even as we support Iraqis as they take the fight to these terrorists, American combat troops will not be returning to fight in Iraq, because there is no American military solution to the larger crisis in Iraq."
Mr Obama warned the Sunni militant group it would be attacked if its convoys threatened to seize the city of Arbil.
The US Defence Department earlier said US planes dropped 72 bundles of supplies, including 8,000 ready-to-eat meals and thousands of gallons of drinking water for threatened civilians near Sinjar.
British Prime Minister David Cameron has expressed his deep concern about the situation in Iraq and welcomed Mr Obama's decision to authorise air strikes.
But a spokesman for Mr Cameron's Downing Street office said Britain, which joined the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, was not planning its own military intervention.
"I am extremely concerned by the appalling situation in Iraq and the desperate situation facing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis," Mr Cameron said in a statement.
"And I utterly condemn the barbaric attacks being waged by ISIL (ISIS, now Islamic State) terrorists across the region."
However, a Downing Street spokeswoman said: "We are not planning a military intervention."
IS fighters control Mosul dam
Islamic State fighters have seized Iraq's largest dam north of their hub of Mosul, giving them control over the supply of water and electricity for a vast area.
"Mosul dam has been in insurgent hands since last night," said Holgard Hekmat, spokesman for the Kurdish peshmerga force that previously guarded the key infrastructure.
The head of the provincial council of Nineveh, of which Mosul is the capital, confirmed the Islamic State group had captured the dam.
"Fierce fighting took place which eventually saw Daash (Islamic State) take control of the dam," said Bashar Kiki.
The dam on the River Tigris, on the southern shores of Mosul lake about 50km north of the city, provides electricity to much of the region and is crucial to irrigation in vast farming areas in Nineveh province.
Meanwhile, Pope Francis is sending a cardinal to help the thousands of Christians fleeing the fighting.
Cardinal Fernando Filoni, a former papal nuncio to the country, is being sent to Iraqi Kurdistan to show the Pope's "spiritual support and the church's solidarity with the people who are suffering", papal spokesman Federico Lombardi said.
He said Cardinal Filoni would be departing soon but gave no date.
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