News / Military

Daesh loses millions of dollars, civilians die after US strike

Tuesday, 12 January 2016 1:50 AM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 12 January 2016 2:01 AM ]

Smoke believed to be from an airstrike billows over the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar on November 12, 2015.

A US airstrike in Iraq has led to the destruction of a Daesh cash storage facility worth “millions” of dollars and the deaths of between five to seven civilians, two American defense officials say.

During what the CNN described as “extremely unusual airstrike”, two 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) bombs were dropped striking the facility in the Daesh-held city of Mosul at dawn on Sunday, the anonymous officials told the American television on Monday.

"We estimate in the millions of dollars... from all their illicit stuff: oil, looting, extortion," said an official.

Washington regards the strike as extremely sensitive, as the building is situated in an area inhabited by civilians and that one official said that the US was willing to risk up to 50 civilian causalities in this area just to destroy the building.

The officials refused to say how the US learned of the location, but after gaining intelligence on the so-called "cash collection and distribution point," the American aircraft and drones monitored the site for days in order to determine when the number of civilians would be the lowest.

The officials also said that the US plans to strike more financial targets in order to prevent the Takfiri terrorists from functioning as a state-like entity.

On December 30, US-led fighter jets and bomber aircraft carried out 17 strikes, five of which were near the newly-liberated town of Ramadi, overrun by Daesh in May 2015.

Nine more attacks hit targets near Mosul with three more airstrikes targeting ISIL positions near the cities of Sanjar and Kisik.

Since August 2014, Washington and some of its allies have been conducting airstrikes against what they call Daesh positions in Iraq.

Some members of the US-led coalition have also been pounding purported ISIL positions inside Syria since September 2014, without any authorization from Damascus or the UN.

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