Four US air strikes to protect Haditha Dam against IS

The four US air strikes Saturday were directed against Islamic State fighters moving towards the Haditha Dam, whose rupture would put Baghdad and its airport at risk of flooding. Haditha Dam in the western Anbar province is closer to the capital – some 225 km – than the Mosul Dam, which US air strikes helped Kurdish and Iraqi forces reclaim earlier this month. Just across the border, Syrian warplanes raided the IS stronghold of Raqqa, killing at least 25 people, most of them civilians.