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| Iraq |
| Germany sends first weapons shipment to Iraqi Kurds |
| 2014-09-26 |
| Germany's armed forces, the Bundeswehr, started flying weapons to Iraqi Kurds early morning Thursday - an operation that it says will eventually see it equip around 10,000 Kurdish fighters with 70 million euros of weapons, Anadolu agency reported. According to a statement on the Bundeswehr's website, among the 25 tons of cargo on board the 2 a.m. Royal Netherlands Air Force KDC-10 were 50 bazookas and ammunition, 520 G3 rifles and 20 type MG3 machine guns. The shipment - the second of which should follow in October - also includes medical equipment for first aid personnel and 4.000 thousand protective goggles. By the end of the operation, Germany anticipates around 10,000 Kurdish fighters to be equipped with around 70 million euros of weapons from Bundeswehr stocks, according to the statement. The German government announced in August that it would send more than 600 tons of military equipment and weapons to the Iraqi Kurds, but ruled out joining airstrikes or sending troops to the region to fight ISIL militants which have killed thousands of people and displaced millions more in Iraq and Syria in a bid to establish a cross-border "caliphate." Germany will continue to provide weapons and military training to Kurdish peshmerga troops until the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is completely destroyed, German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen has said. Leyen said that Germany had sent explosives and bomb disposal equipment for the first time to the Kurdish region on Thursday, in a joint press conference with President Massoud Barzani of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). Leyen said: "ISIL equips the places it seizes with bomb set-ups (explosive devices). "This equipment will be used to defuse these explosives and speed up the process for people to return home." Emphasizing that the KRG is now hosting more than one million refugees from Iraq and Syrian Kurdish regions, Leyen said the administration needed more humanitarian aid than it had already received. |
| Posted by:Steve White |