Kurdish forces, along with ethnic allies,
recently seized the town of Sinjar in a 48 hour battle. Very efficiently
done. The report I read says that the vast majority of ISIS casualties
were the result of coalition air strikes. The results described mean that
someone was calling in close air support very effectively. It could be
US, Canadian or British Special Forces. It could be Peshmerga trained to
do the job for themselves. But the big difference from earlier battles is
how close the air support is. Previously, we were hitting ISIS targets
that were a distance away from any ground contact with friendly forces.
We wanted to avoid "friendly fire" accidents like the one reported December
17, where 10 Iraqi Army soldiers were reported killed by a coalition air strike
near Fallujah. There seems to have been much tighter coordination with
the Peshmerga.
The other part of the announcement is also startling. It
seems to say the US is going to deliver a lot of heavy equipment directly to
Iraqi Kurdistan. Up to now, US policy was that all arms deliveries had to
be physically delivered or at least authorized by the Baghdad government.
The quoted statement does not seem to have any such qualification. However,
Secretary of State Ash Carter included enough obscurity in his statement that
it will not be taken as a new beginning for US military aid policy until the
weapons actually are delivered in Erbil.
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