Someone Bombed Iraq Today - Who? Pentagon Says, "It Wasn't Me"

From Politico:

The Pentagon on Thursday disputed a new New York Times report stating that, according to Kurdish officials, American military forces have bombed at least two targets in northern Iraq. 

“Press reports that US has conducted airstrikes in Iraq completely false. No such action taken,” Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby tweeted late Thursday afternoon, shortly after the Times published its report. 

The Times report states that “word of the bombings, reported on Kurdish television from the city of Erbil, came as President Obama was preparing to make a statement in Washington.”

Hmm:

UPDATE (6:00 p.m.): The Times changed its headline from "American Forces Said to Bomb ISIS Targets in Iraq" to "Militants in Iraq Hit by Strikes, Kurds Say." The copy, which suggests that the bombing was down by American forces, remained the same.

UPDATE (6:23 p.m.): The Times again changes its headline, this time to "Airstrikes on ISIS Militants Have Begun, Kurds and Iraqis Say," and changed the body of the text. The story now begins as follows:

Airstrikes on towns in northern Iraq seized by Islamist militants began late Thursday in what Kurdish and Iraqi officials called the first stage of an American-led intervention to blunt the militants’ advance and provide emergency aid to tens of thousands of refugees.

The Pentagon firmly denied that American forces had begun a bombing campaign. But Pentagon officials said it was possible that allies of the United States, either the Iraqi or Turkish militaries, had conducted the bombing.

Kurdish and Iraqi officials attributed the bombing campaign to American forces. An announcement on Kurdish television of what was described as an American intervention prompted street celebrations and horn-honking by residents of towns under seige by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.