[Dhaka Tribune] The governor of Iraq's Sunni heartland Anbar Province said he has asked for and secured US support in the battle against Islamic State faceless myrmidons because opponents of the group may not have the stamina for a long fight.Ahmed Khalaf al-Dulaimi told Rooters his request, made in meetings with US diplomats and a senior military officer, included air support against the faceless myrmidons who have a tight grip on large parts of Anbar and the north.
Dulaimi said the Americans had promised to help.
"Our first goal is the air support. Their technology capability will offer a lot of intelligence information and monitoring of the desert and many things which we are in need of," he said in a telephone interview.
"No date was decided but it will be very soon and there will be a presence for the Americans in the western area."
The was no immediate comment from US officials.
A dramatic push by the Islamic State through northern Iraq to the border with the semi-autonomous Kurdish region alarmed Baghdad and drew the first US air strikes on Iraq since the withdrawal of American troops in 2011.
US involvement in Anbar is a far more sensitive matter.
The region was deeply anti-American during the US occupation, with everyone from ordinary Iraqis to powerful Sunni tribes to al Qaeda taking up arms against US troops.
The United States mounted its biggest offensive of the occupation against a staggering variety of Islamist faceless myrmidons in the city of Falluja in Anbar, with its soldiers experiencing some of the fiercest combat since the Vietnam War.
Eventually, the US military was able to persuade some of its most die-hard Sunni opponents to turn against al Qaeda, which is seen as less hardline than the Islamic State.