U.S. launches new airstrikes on Islamic State in Iraq, Syria

American warplanes again attacked militants in Iraq and Syria, carrying out airstrikes on five Islamic State targets, the Pentagon announced Wednesday.

The air attacks, which were conducted Tuesday and early Wednesday, continued to pound the Sunni Muslim extremists in Syria with a strike near a border crossing close to the Iraqi town of Al Qaim. Eight vehicles were damaged, the Pentagon said.

It was the 25th target hit since U.S. and Arab nations launched an intense bombardment of suspected Islamic State and Al Qaeda positions around five Syrian cities early Tuesday.

The U.S. also continued its expansion of the air war in Iraq with two attacks west of Baghdad that destroyed two armed vehicles and a weapons cache, the U.S. Central Command said in a statement.

Further north near the city of Irbil, where Kurdish peshmerga forces have been entrenched in a bitter ground war against the militants, two U.S. airstrikes destroyed Islamic State fighting positions, the statement said.

U.S. warplanes have conducted 198 attacks in Iraq against Islamic State forces since the air campaign there began Aug. 8.

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