Iraqi security forces and Shiite militiamen stand guard after breaking a siege by the Islamic State extremist group on Amirli, some 170km north of Baghdad
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is sending 16,000 assault rifles, plus anti-tank weapons and armored vehicles, to Iraqi Kurds fighting Islamic State militants, lifting a German taboo on shipments into war zones.
The hardware, which also includes pistols, trucks and grenades, will equip 4,000 soldiers of the Kurdish regional government in Iraq, Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen said at a news conference in Berlin late Sunday after leaders of Merkel’s coalition met to approve the shipments. The equipment will be delivered in three batches in September, she said.
“If we don’t succeed in pushing Islamic State back, the Middle East’s fragile order would be shaken to the core and set the entire region ablaze,” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said at the news conference. “It’s not an easy decision for us, but it’s the right decision in a situation that’s exceptional in every way.”
The Islamic State has captured vast swaths of northern Iraq and territory in Syria in its campaign to establish a Muslim caliphate erasing the borders between the two nations.
International efforts to beat back the Islamic State gained urgency this month after the extremists beheaded U.S. journalist James Foley. France said in August it’s arming Iraqi Kurds, and Italy cleared the way for military aid. The U.K. wants to look at what role NATO can take in supplying the Kurds with weapons, a government official said on Aug. 29.
Over the weekend, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, writing in the New York Times, called for a “global coalition” against Islamist extremists who are “perilously close to Israel.”
U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron and Merkel were planning to address their respective parliaments on Iraq yesterday.
U.S. lawmakers on Sunday talk shows urged President Barack Obama to devise a more aggressive strategy against the Islamists, with Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, saying the U.S. should increase participation of special forces and military advisers.
The U.S. has flown more than 100 airstrikes against Islamic State positions in a campaign that began Aug. 8. Iraqi forces Sunday broke a two-month siege of the Shiite Turkmen-dominated town of Amirli after U.S. strikes on Islamic State positions and U.S., U.K., Australian and Iraqi forces dropped humanitarian aid to residents.
Two additional airstrikes were made near Amirli and Mosul Dam Sunday, the U.S. Central Command said in an e-mailed statement.
While the mission in Amirli opened a new front for U.S. involvement in Iraq, it follows the same pattern of airstrikes against Islamic State forces. U.S. forces also air-dropped humanitarian aid around Mount Sinjar, where thousands of civilians from the Yezidi religious minority had been trapped seeking refuge from the militants.
Obama has said U.S. airstrikes will be limited to such humanitarian missions and to protecting American personnel and facilities until Iraq forms a government more inclusive of the country’s ethnic and religious groups – particularly Sunnis, some of whom have welcomed Islamic State after chafing against their treatment by Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government.
Germany’s shipments, which include Heckler & Koch rifles and MILAN anti-tank weapons, are being coordinated with its allies, von der Leyen said. Ultimately, Germany’s security is at stake, Steinmeier said.
Cameron, speaking in London on Aug. 29 after the U.K. raised the terror threat to “severe,” the second-highest level, said Islamic State in Iraq posed “a greater threat to our security than we have seen before.” The battle against Islamist extremism is a “generational struggle” that will probably last decades, he said. Bloomberg
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