(23 Aug 2014) About 20 flights a day are leaving the USS George HW Bush aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf area to help with air support in Iraq.
US President Barack Obama authorised airstrikes to protect US interests and personnel in the region from the Islamic State group, including at facilities in Irbil, as well as to protect minority Yazidi refugees fleeing the militants.
US airstrikes have intensified in recent days against the Islamic State militants but details about the execution of this limited campaign are thin.
The only portion of the air campaign that has been discussed publicly in detail is the work being done by a range of Navy aircraft launching off the George H.W. Bush.
These include F/A-18F Super Hornets, which carried out the first strikes authorised by Obama.
Also flying are EA-6B Prowlers, which are electronic warfare planes designed to suppress enemy air defences on the ground.
"I believe we are a little over 30 right now, the number of airstrikes that we have conducted," said Rear Admiral DeWolfe H. Miller III, commander of the carrier strike group. "All of which, again, we are either in a humanitarian assistance role or in protecting American citizens or our facilities inside of Iraq."
Miller would not talk about any air defences his pilots may have encountered over Iraq.
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