Obama Blocks Attempts By Arab Allies To Arm Kurds With Heavy Weapons In Fight Against Islamic State
US blocks attempts by Arab allies to fly heavy weapons directly to Kurds to fight Islamic State
Middle East allies accuse Barack Obama and David Cameron of failing to show strategic leadership in fight against Islamic State
The United States has blocked attempts by its Middle East allies to fly heavy weapons directly to the Kurds fighting Islamic State jihadists in Iraq.
Some of America’s closest allies say President Barack Obama and other Western leaders, including David Cameron, are failing to show strategic leadership over the world’s gravest security crisis for decades.
They now say they are willing to “go it alone” in supplying heavy weapons to the Kurds, even if means defying the Iraqi authorities and their American backers, who demand all weapons be channelled through Baghdad.
High level officials from Gulf and other states have told this newspaper that all attempts to persuade Mr Obama of the need to arm the Kurds directly as part of more vigorous plans to take on Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) have failed. The Senate voted down one attempt by supporters of the Kurdish cause last month.
The officials say they are looking at new ways to take the fight to Isil without seeking US approval.
“If the Americans and the West are not prepared to do anything serious about defeating Isil, then we will have to find new ways of dealing with the threat,” said a senior Arab government official. “With Isil making ground all the time we simply cannot afford to wait for Washington to wake up to the enormity of the threat we face.”
The Peshmerga have been successfully fighting Isil, driving them back from the gates of Erbil and, with the support of Kurds from neighbouring Syria, re-establishing control over parts of Iraq’s north-west.
But they are doing so with a makeshift armoury. Millions of pounds-worth of weapons have been bought by a number of European countries to arm the Kurds, but American commanders, who are overseeing all military operations against Isil, are blocking the arms transfers.
One of the core complaints of the Kurds is that the Iraqi army has abandoned so many weapons in the face of Isil attack, the Peshmerga are fighting modern American weaponry with out-of-date Soviet equipment.
Wild Thing’s comment………..
Obama is Anti American and Pro Radical Muslim.Just more proof Obama is truly a Muslim.
The Caliphate is to Muslims what the Kingdom of Heaven is to Christians. ISIS is setting up a Caliphate. Of course Obama is going to support them.
Obviously obama does not care for the Kurds. I don’t know if obama is Sunni or Shia, but he certainly hates the Kurds.