Iraq would supply Kurdish fighters with heavy weapons to fight the Islamic State group 0411142

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Defence & Security News - Iraq
 
 
Tuesday, November 4, 2014 09:39 AM
 
Iraq would supply Kurdish fighters with heavy weapons to fight the Islamic State group.
Iraq would supply Kurdish region with its needs for heavy weapons to help Kurdish fighters battling militants of the Islamic State group. Fighters defending Kobani, with just light weapons at their disposal, have repeatedly warned that they could not save the town themselves.
     
Iraq would supply Kurdish region with its needs for heavy weapons to help Kurdish fighters battling militants of the Islamic State group. Fighters defending Kobani, with just light weapons at their disposal, have repeatedly warned that they could not save the town themselves.
A convoy of Kurdish peshmerga fighters drive through Arbil after leaving a base in northern Iraq, on their way to the Syrian town of Kobani, October 28, 2014.
     
The Islamic State group was better equipped with weapons plundered from a massive arsenal of U.S. equipment surrendered by the Iraqi army when it collapsed in the north in June. The plunder includes long-range artillery, tanks, armored vehicles, rocket launchers and sniper rifles, as well as tons of ammunition.

The U.S. and its coalition partners have been bombing ISIS targets in Kobani for weeks and recently airdropped aid, ammunition and light weapons to fighters defending the town. Islamic State group positions in Kobani also have been targeted by more than 150 airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition over the past weeks.

The U.S. Central Command said Friday that American warplanes conducted four airstrikes near Kobani, damaging four Islamic State fighting positions and one building occupied by the group.

Britain has also sent just 40 machine guns to Iraq's Kurds and a small group of soldiers to teach fighters how to fire them.

Kurds say they need much heavier weapons, such as tanks and attack helicopters, to take on Islamic State fighters.

More than 100 instructors from Germany, Canada, Australia and United States are now on the ground in Iraqi Kurdistan, teaching the region's peshmerga forces how to use the new weapons.