BEIRUT — American warplanes and drones hit Islamic State tanks, Humvees, checkpoints and bunkers in airstrikes Friday targeting the extremists in Syria and Iraq, as the U.S.-led coalition expanded to include Britain, Denmark and Belgium.
The European countries committed to take part only in the Iraq part of the military campaign, leaving the operation in Syria to the United States and five Arab allies who began conducting airstrikes there Tuesday.
Still, the broadening of the coalition provides a welcome boost for President Barack Obama and the American-led campaign.
The U.S.-led operation aims to roll back and ultimately crush the Islamic State group, which has carved out a proto-state stretching from Syria’s northern border with Turkey to the outskirts of Baghdad. The militants have employed brute force to achieve their goals, massacring captured Syrian and Iraqi troops, terrorizing minorities in both countries and beheading two American journalists and a British aid worker.
While striking fear into its opponents, the Islamic State group’s tactics have also galvanized the international community to move against the extremists. France has already joined the U.S.-led effort in Iraq and is considering expanding its role to Syria. The Netherlands, too, has said it would take part in the bombing campaign in Iraq.
Denmark, Belgium and Britain all signed on as well Friday. Denmark said it would send seven F-16 fighter jets and 250 pilots and support staff, while Belgium will contribute six F-16s that are en route to Jordan so they can go into action as early as Saturday.
“No one should be ducking in this case,” said Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt. “Everyone should contribute.”
British lawmakers also voted Friday to join the coalition. London is expected to deploy Tornado fighters, which are in Cyprus — within striking distance of northern Iraq.
“This is about psychopathic terrorists that are trying to kill us, and we do have to realize that, whether we like it or not, they have already declared war on us,” Prime Minister David Cameron said to a tense House of Commons in a more than six-hour debate. “There isn’t a ‘walk on by’ option. There isn’t an option of just hoping this will go away.”
The European contingent will join a campaign that has carried out hundreds of airstrikes, the latest of which hit Islamic State positions in both Iraq and Syria late Thursday and Friday.
The U.S. Central Command said that airstrikes outside the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk destroyed three Islamic State Humvees, disabled two armed vehicles and damaged an armored truck.
Strikes west of Baghdad and near the Syrian border knocked out a guard shack, armed vehicles, a bunker and a checkpoint.
In Syria, the U.S. destroyed four tanks and damaged another outside the city of Deir el-Zour on the Euphrates River.
Those strikes marked the second consecutive day that the United States and its Arab allies have taken aim at the militants near the border with Iraq.
Coalition planes pounded a dozen makeshift oil-producing facilities in the same area Thursday, trying to cripple one of the militants’ primary sources of cash — black market oil sales that the U.S. says produce up to $2 million a day.
Syrian activists said the air campaign hit the Tanak oil field as well as the Qouriyeh oil-producing area in Deir el-Zour on Friday. It said air raids also targeted the headquarters of the Islamic State group in the town of Mayadeen southeast of Deir el-Zour city.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights said the strikes were thought to have been carried out by the coalition. Another activist collective, the Local Coordination Committees, also reported four strikes on Mayadeen that it said were conducted by the U.S. and its allies.
In the village of Zagheer, a warplane attacked a motorcycle Friday evening after it left an Islamic State group compound, according to the Observatory. It said an Iraqi commander of the group was killed.
The Observatory reports that at least 13 civilians have died in coalition strikes.
In Washington, the top U.S. military officer said the U.S. and its allies are taking every precaution to limit civilian casualties.
“Of course you know you can’t reduce it to zero,” said Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a Pentagon news conference. He said he has received no reports of civilian casualties so far.
Dempsey said U.S. allies participating in the campaign against Islamic State group are doing just as well as their American counterparts in hitting their targets. He attributed the success to two decades of training with other countries and acquiring advanced surveillance and targeting equipment.
