|
Outgunned and untested for years, Kurdish peshmerga struggle vs IS
(Reuters) - The Kurdish peshmerga fighter ran out of ammunition but saved two bullets to end his own life in case Islamic State militants caught up with him as he fled the front line in northwest Iraq.My uncle and his buddy also saved two bullets for each other in a foxhole at Wheeler Field in the days just after Pearl Harbor. After a two-month stand-off along a 1,000-kilometre (630 mile) long front, the Kurds failed their first major test, allowing the Sunni militants who want to redraw the map of the Middle East to grab more towns, oil fields and Iraq's biggest dam. The peshmerga, literally "those who confront death", had built up a reputation as fearsome warriors, but in the end they proved no match for the better-armed militants who attacked them with suicidal zeal. "They took us by surprise," said the peshmerga fighter, who asked to remain unnamed because the force had been ordered not to divulge any information about their defeat. "For every mortar round we fired, they fired 100 back. We didn't know where they were coming from. We lost contact with each other. We didn't have enough weapons. It was chaos," he told Reuters. .... The routing damaged the peshmergas' aura of invincibility as one of the only fighting forces in Iraq capable of taking on the Islamic State, and threatened the Kurdistan region's standing as the sole patch of stability in a country torn by sectarian conflict. "This was the first time we saw the peshmerga withdraw, and it had a deep impact on all the peshmerga and the whole of Kurdish society," said spokesman General Halgurd Hikmat. .... Stretched thin over a vast area and armed with Soviet-era weapons raided from the Iraqi army during the 2003 invasion, the peshmerga were unprepared to confront an enemy that has been honing its skills in neighboring Syria for the past two years...The Islamic State was also better equipped with weapons plundered from the Iraq army, including long-range artillery, tanks, armored vehicles, rocket launchers, and sniper rifles, as well as tons of ammunition. They were also flush with cash. "Yes, there have been some reverses by the peshmerga and disorganization, some withdrawals in certain places, but this is not a conventional war," said Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari, admitting that even the most expert peshmerga commanders had been stunned by the ferocity of the Islamic State. "Nobody should underestimate their ability and capacity. They are attacking with small numbers, mobile forces and speed: they are not holding territory." Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2014-08-14 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=397744 |