ISIS fighters seized the Mosul Dam on the Tigris River on Aug. 7 as part of an offensive that has seen large swaths of Iraq fall to the Sunni militants. Now a joint military operation has kicked off to retake the country's largest dam from ISIS militants. The decision to try retaking the dam comes after intelligence showed ISIS militants were not yet at a point where they could blow up the installation. The Mosul Dam is critical to Iraqi's entire infrastructure, and if ISIS militants blow it up it would send a wall of water sixty feet high towards Mosul and Baghdad.
VFA-41 was tasked to lead a flight of four F/A-18 Super Hornets on a mission to conduct airstrikes and provide air cover to Iraqi and Kurdish forces fighting to regain control of the Mosul Dam.
The flight ingressed and bustered to a tanker ASAP over southern Iraq to refuel and then headed north to the dam located just north of Mosul in northern Iraq. Targets included armoured vehicles captured by ISIS that have taken up position around the dam.
Afterwards U.S. Central Command said U.S. fighter planes pounded targets and destroyed or damaged a total of 14 vehicles, including four armoured personnel carriers, two Humvees and seven armed vehicles, and an armoured vehicle as part of the joint military operation to retake the country's largest dam from ISIS militants.
