US State Department gives $12.5 million in military aid to the Peshmerga
The US State Department confirmed last Thursday the sending of 12.5 million dollars in military aid to the Kurdistan Peshmerga forces. This action is included within the framework of fighting against the remaining Daesh troops in the region, through the Training and Education Fund programme against ISIS (CTEF).
The initial agreement included the delivery of 93 vehicles, including 11 armoured Humvees, 20 tactical armoured vehicles and 50 light cargo vehicles and 12 ambulances. However, five additional ambulances were included in the subsequent transaction. The vehicles arrived via the International Airport of Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish autonomous region in Iraq.
With this movement, the USA has delivered a total of 400 million dollars to the Kurdish and Iraqi security forces. However, Colonel David Williams, director of the Kurdistan Coordination Centre (KCC), declared to Kurdish media that "most of the support goes to the Iraqi security forces".
During the past year, the US Department of Defense allocated a total of 375 million to Iraqi forces, while the Kurds received a benefit of only 25 million. The aid does not only cover vehicles; the US also provides weapons, ammunition, food and fuel.
Colonel Williams admitted that the main objective is "the final defeat of ISIS". The coalition forces know that there are still strongholds of the Islamic terrorist group in disputed areas between the cities of Erbil and Baghdad. The last offensive took place in October, when the Peshmerga launched a raid against Daesh militants in the northern province of Kirkuk.
Williams himself acknowledged the existence of "bilateral efforts" by the coalition countries to maintain aid. The latter comes in the middle of a 30-point reform project initiated by the Peshmerga Ministry and promoted by Germany, the UK and the US, the main members of the coalition, among others. The reforms include updating the wage payment system and reorganising the brigades, according to Major General Bakhtyar Muhammed.
COVID-19 stopped US training for Peshmerga forces. For this reason most of their activity is now focused on an operational level. Colonel Williams stated that the department's work consists of "advising the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs", working with some of the sector's commandos and some of the brigades.
The training of the Peshmerga forces consisted, according to Defense Department sources, of fostering individual combat skills, implementing company squad and maneuver tactics and action against improvised explosive devices, among others.
In July 2016, the USA signed an agreement with the Kurdistan Regional Government to fight Daesh in the region. The State Department then allocated a total of 400 million dollars to the Peshmerga units, in what was the official start of relations that continue today.
The Peshmerga-with an initial unit of 200.000 troops-have acted as the official military force of Iraqi Kurdistan, being protagonists in the active struggle against Daesh. Since the beginning of the war, about 1,700 Peshmerga fighters have lost their lives and more than 10,000 were injured.
Last Wednesday, the secretary general of the Peshmerga Ministry, Jabar Yawar, acknowledged a Kurdish milieu that they have received help from the USA "even before ISIS, since 2010, when the Peshmerga Ministry was unified". So they have been a key ally for the coalition for more than a decade.
Kurdistan is, however, a deeply divided region. Tensions are persistent between the Syrian Kurdistan Democratic Party (PDKS) - the political arm of the Redwood Peshmerga supported by Iraqi Kurdistan - and the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the main Kurdish party in Syria.
The hostilities have also increased between the Iraqi Kurdistan Government and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) during the last months. Considered as a terrorist group by Turkey -as well as by UK and USA- the PKK has brought with it continuous Turkish attacks in the Kurdish areas.