Kurdish peshmerga troops participate in an intensive security deployment against Islamic State militants in Makhmur, on the outskirts of the province of Nineveh August 7, 2014.
Credit: REUTERS/Stringer
ISIS Beating Iraqis and Kurds As One Lacks 'Heart' And The Other Ammo -- ABC News
The Islamic militia ISIS has been able to roll back both the Iraqi army and the Kurdish peshmerga force because one lacks the "heart" for a fight while the other lacks the firepower, according to Americans familiar with both forces.
ISIS has easily swept the Iraqi army from Anbar province in the southwest of Iraq as well as much of northern Iraq and then blunted attempts by the Iraqi government to retake cities.
The Kurdish peshmerga was expected to be a more formidable force, but they have also lost ground to ISIS, including the vital Mosul dam, in recent days.
"It is not clear whether either the peshmerga or the ISF (Iraq Security Force) can prevent ISIS from seizing villages and outlying infrastructure that ISIS desires to control,” said Jessica Lewis, the research director at the Institute of the Study of War.
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My Comment: ISIS has enough captured American weaponry to arm tens of thousands of fighter .... the Iraqi army has shown itself to be totally dysfunctional ..... and as for the Kurds, while Kurdish forces were busy seizing land and oilfields from departing Iraqi forces, they neglected to focus on the need to have an effective military force to face The Islamic State.
This is a sobering article on how ill prepared the Kurds are to confront The Islamic State .... Kurdish forces ill-equipped to fight Iraq's extremists (The Telegraph)
1 comment:
I thought the Kurds seized as much
military material as they could.
The land and oil are also valuable. Land can be traded for time.
Of course the oil could pay for more bullets, unless the freaking idiots playing chicken in Baghdad keep you from selling the oil.
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