U.S., Allies Training Kurds on Using Sophisticated Weaponry Against Islamic State

Program Prepares Regional Iraqi Force for Stepped Up Fight Against Islamic State Extremists

By  JOE PARKINSON and DION NISSENBAUM – WALL STREET JOURNAL -Updated Sept. 24, 2014 8:32 p.m. ET – ERBIL, Iraq—The U.S. military and its allies have launched an urgent effort to train Kurdish forces to use sophisticated weapons that the West is expected to supply in the coming months for a stepped up counteroffensive against the extremist group Islamic State.For the past month, American, British and French advisers have been training fighters from the semiautonomous Kurdistan region in battlefield techniques at military bases across northern Iraq.
The conflict with Islamic State insurgents has laid bare the weaknesses of the forces known as Peshmerga, who not only lack military hardware but also have a strategic deficiency. Steeped in guerrilla warfare, the forces have little experience defending long front lines or fighting in urban environments, Kurdish officials said. (More: Kurds Gain on Islamic State in Iraq)

One goal of the broader U.S.-led training program is to transform the Peshmerga from an irregular force into a more organized one that can more effectively fight Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

“Training is welcome but we need it to expand,” said Sadi Ahmed Pire, politburo member of the Kurdistan Union Party. “The problem is that we have a heritage as a guerrilla force, but we need to learn how to control cities and to fight ISIS.”

The narrowly tailored training program, detailed in interviews with The Wall Street Journal, is an example of how the U.S.-led alliance against Islamic State insurgents is already at work on the ground. It involves dozens of advisers from a growing number of Western allies.

It is the cornerstone of a campaign to train Kurdish forces expected to serve as the international coalition’s front-line proxy force so the U.S. doesn’t have to send in American ground forces to confront Islamic State fighters. The training is taking place at several facilities close to Erbil, capital of Kurdistan, according to several senior Kurdish officials, Peshmerga commanders and Western advisers.

In at least one training program, French advisers are teaching Kurdish fighters how to effectively use heavy machine guns. American advisers are coordinating the overall effort, Western officials said.

“The Americans are leading up here because the Americans always do—because they have the men, they have the money, they have the time, they have they equipment. So they’re taking it forward,” one British adviser in Erbil said on Sunday.

The program spotlights what military analysts say will be the key role of advisers and covert operatives in a battle the U.S. has pledged to fight without deploying ground troops.

“It may sound like a small number. But if the U.S. has two or three dozen advisers embedded in Peshmerga headquarters, it can be incredibly useful,” said Michael Knights of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank. “There are already lots of little indicators of broadening cooperation on the intelligence side, with Peshmerga foiling a number of night attacks by ISIS.”

The nerve center for the growing international effort in Erbil is the Peshmerga Ministry, which hosts a two-room military Joint Operations Center used to plan foreign and Iraqi airstrikes on Islamic State targets. Since early August, the U.S. has carried out nearly 200 airstrikes and last week, France became the first allied nation to join the U.S. in the air war.

During a recent visit to the ministry, American, British, French and other military advisers from the coalition rushed in and out of meetings with Kurdish officers. Inside the Joint Operations Center, a handful of Kurdish officers worked on large computer monitors set on an oval table that fills most of the room, where a map of the region is taped to the wall.

For now, the U.S. and its Western allies are focusing on training Kurdish fighters to use more sophisticated weapons on the battlefield.

The German government, which is supplying the Peshmerga with high-tech weapons and ammunition, will fly senior Kurdish commanders to a base in Germany later this month for training on how to use MILAN antitank missiles, according to Kurdish and German officials.

“One of the things we’ve agreed to do is not to give them anything without showing them how to use it,” the British adviser said. “That’s not always been done in other conflicts. Sometimes people simply gift them stuff and they look at it and go: ‘I don’t even know what it is, let alone how to use it.’ ”

Peshmerga spokesman Helgurd Hikmet Ali said U.S. advisers are advising the Peshmerga on all aspects of the battlefield but they never take an active part in combat.

 

“They never fight, but they have been close to the front line and are helping the Peshmerga in all the ways possible. We are very grateful,” Mr. Ali said.

Kurdish officials say they expect the training to expand. But bolstering the Peshmerga as the leading edge in the fight against Islamic State is a pivot from Washington’s decadelong bid to rebuild the Iraqi army and sideline regional militias that could harden ethnic and sectarian divisions already threatening to tear Iraq apart.

The Iraqi army essentially collapsed in the face of the rapid advance by Islamic State since June that captured large tracts of territory across Iraq. The Iraqi government has insisted that all weapons supplies be shipped through Baghdad, while Kurdish officials have called for direct arming to Erbil.

In July, the U.S. began sending military personnel to assess the abilities of the Iraqi security forces. Over the past two weeks, U.S. military officials said the military formally began advising Iraqi and Peshmerga units and providing more direct advice in battlefield tactics. But U.S. officials insisted the military advisers haven’t accompanied Kurdish forces in the field or provided any sort of front-line advising.

A broader effort to train the Peshmerga will face many challenges, as the force is splintered, corrupted and poorly trained to defend a new 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line against the radical fighters. For the decade since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the U.S. poured billions of dollars into training the Iraqi army, while the Peshmerga wasn’t provided sophisticated weaponry for fears it would accelerate Kurdish moves toward secession.

“We’re grateful for the new training and we don’t want to point fingers,” said Safin Dizayee, the Kurdistan regional government spokesman. “But looking back to years when Peshmerga forces didn’t enjoy the training or funds given to the Iraqi army—things could have been very different.”

Turkey’s foreign ministry didn’t respond to calls for comment. But Ankara hasn’t objected to calls to arm Iraq’s Kurds as long as weapons are kept away from Kurdish guerrilla fighters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has fought a three-decade war for autonomy from Turkey and is listed as a terrorist organization in Washington.

Many Kurds have expressed hopes that conflict would speed a radical overhaul of the Peshmerga, which remains divided into militia factions loyal to rival political blocs.

The largest factions—the Turkey-allied KDP and the Iran-allied PUK—fought a civil war in the 1990s and retain entirely separate command and control structures. Some commanders say those boundaries regularly lead to haphazard and sometimes contradictory commands on the front line, endangering troops and leaving a weakness easily exploited by Islamic State insurgents.

“What we need is a united Peshmerga, but there are no reforms because a small group benefits from the situation,” said Burhan Sa’id Sofi, a PUK commander and former transport minister revered across Iraqi Kurdistan. “On the surface, it looks good. But under the hood it is a mess.”

The problems with the structure of the Peshmerga are compounded by rampant corruption and nepotism within the force, Kurdish officials and former commanders say.

Senior positions have long been for sale, while tens of thousands of so-called “Ghost Peshmerga”—party functionaries or well-connected families who have never served in battle—have been grandfathered onto military payrolls in return for political loyalty, Kurdish officials say.

“The military needs radical reform and fast,” said Rabun Maruf the head of the Gorran (Change) Party bloc in Iraqi Kurdistan’s parliament.

—Julian E. Barnes contributed to this article.

Write to Joe Parkinson at joe.parkinson@wsj.com and Dion Nissenbaum atdion.nissenbaum@wsj.com