MESOP : U.S. STILL IN FAVOR OF BAGHDAD – NO SUPPORT FOR INDEPENDENT KURDISTAN

Iraq supplies Kurdistan with ammunition in ‘unprecedented’ move, U.S.

August 9, 2014 – Reuters – WASHINGTON,— The Iraqi government provided a planeload of ammunition to Peshmerga fighters from Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region on Friday, a U.S. official said, in an unprecedented act of military cooperation between Kurdish and Iraqi forces brought on by an urgent militant threat.The official said Iraqi security forces flew a C-130 cargo plane loaded with mostly small-arms ammunition to Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, in a bid to strengthen the region’s Peshmerga fighters as they struggle to keep militants from the Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot, at bay.

“This is unprecedented,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

“Developments over the last few days have refocused the issue, and we’ve seen unprecedented cooperation between Baghdad and Erbil in terms of going after (the Islamic State), not only in terms of conversation but in terms of actual support.”

In the first airstrikes in Iraq since U.S. forces withdrew in 2011, U.S. warplanes bombed Islamic State fighters several times on Friday, in an increasingly urgent attempt to halt the militants who have seized a wide swathe of territory since they swept into northern Iraq in June, and who now appear set on taking the Kurdish capital. The acute threat to Erbil, seat of the regional government and a hub for foreign companies working in Iraq, appears to have at least temporarily eased a long-running feud between leaders in the Kurdistan region, who have long dreamed of an independent state, and the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shi’ite Arab who has long feuded with Kurdish leaders over land and oil.

As Islamic State fighters made another dramatic advance earlier this week, Maliki ordered his air force for the first time to back Kurdish forces to help them repel the militants. The delivery of ammunition on Friday is sure to be a welcome development for Kurdish officials, who for weeks have complained that the regional fighters were overstretched and underequipped as they stared down the Islamist fighters, who have weapons they have seized from Iraqi army bases. Both steps are significant in a country where in recent years the Peshmerga, whose name means “those who face death,” and the Iraqi forces under the command of Baghdad have been much closer to fighting each another than to cooperating.

‘QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE’

The official said the Obama administration was now working with the Iraqi government to ensure that additional requests from the Kurdistan Regional Government, for small arms and munitions including mortars and AK-47s, would be met in the near future.”We’re still coordinating with the government of Iraq to help fill the needs as quickly as possible,” the official said.