UK prepares to supply arms directly to Kurdish forces fighting Isis.
Kurds welcome move by Britain to significantly intensify its involvement in the current Iraq crisis.
David Cameron is prepared to supply weapons directly to Kurdish forces fighting jihadists from the Islamic State (Isis) in northern Iraq, in a move that risks drawing Britain back indirectly into the country's conflict.
In a significant intensification of British involvement in the Iraq crisis, the foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, will tell his EU counterparts in Brussels on Friday that Britain is prepared to join France in arming the Kurds. Cameron and Nick Clegg agreed the plan at an emergency Cobra meeting.
The move was immediately welcomed by the chancellor of the Kurdish Region Security Council, who had pleaded with Britain earlier in the week to rally to the help of the Kurds. Masrour Barzani said: "If it's true, we welcome and appreciate the British decision to supply us with the effective weapons that we've been asking for."
The decision to pave the way for the possible supply of arms to Iraq means that the UK may once again bear responsibility - if only indirectly - for casualties in Iraq. Operation Telic, the name for the British military operation, ended in 2011. UK combat operations ended in 2009.
Government sources said Britain was not moving towards direct military intervention in Iraq. They said the decision to respond positively to a request to arm Kurdish forces was consistent with the government's approach of responding to a humanitarian crisis.
Britain previously indicated that it was only prepared to transport weapons to the Kurds on behalf of other EU countries. These were mainly Soviet-era weapons from former Warsaw-pact countries.
But Cameron and Clegg, the latter of whom took part Cobra meeting via a secure link from his Spanish holiday, agreed that Britain would now respond favourably to a request from the Kurds for direct military assistance. It is expected that Britain would initially provide hi-tech equipment, such as night-vision goggles. The Kurds have been trained on weapons from the former Soviet Union which means that they rely on eastern European countries for their arms. But Britain would provide weapons and ammunition if requested.
The decision to agree to such a request highlighted Britain's concerns about the challenge of defeating Isis forces, despite what the prime minister described as "good news" after Washington abandoned a rescue mission from Mount Sinjar. The decision was made after US forces on the ground found fewer than expected Yazidi refugees because the Kurds had already rescued many and US air strikes succeeded in beating back Isis forces.
Barack Obama hailed the success of the air strikes in breaking the Isis siege of Mount Sinjar. The US president said: "We broke the [Isis] siege of Mount Sinjar. We helped vulnerable people reach safety and we helped save many innocent lives. Because of these efforts, we do not expect there to be an additional operation to evacuate people off the mountain and it is unlikely that we are going to need to continue humanitarian airdrops on the mountain. The majority of the military personnel who conducted the assessment will be leaving Iraq in the coming days."
But Britain agrees with the US and France that the Kurds will need reinforcements amid mixed success in beating back Isis forces. "This is a long-term challenge and a long-term threat," one government source said. "You want to enable the forces in the region to be able to confront[Isis]."
A Downing Street spokesperson hinted at the change of tack when commenting on the Cobra meeting. The spokesperson said: "It is vital that Iraqi and Kurdish forces are able to stop the advance of [Isis] terrorists across the country … We will also continue our work to ensure that Kurdish forces have the military supplies they require, including transporting more equipment from eastern Europe. The foreign secretary will use the meeting of foreign ministers from across Europe to press for better coordination of aid and military supplies to Iraq."
No 10's spokesperson made clear that Britain agreed with Obama that the need for humanitarian air drops had lessened. "We are reviewing the need for additional airdrops, given that there appear to be adequate supplies on the mountain, but we will keep the option open if we establish there is further need. We will also maintain our Chinook helicopters in the region so we have the flexibility to help the most vulnerable if the need arises, and our Tornados will also stay out there in case we require further surveillance of the area."
Nadhim Zahawi, the Conservative MP who was born to Kurdish parents in Baghdad, welcomed the announcement. Zahawi, a member of the Downing Street policy board who flew to Irbil on Thursday evening, said: "It is important that we have looked at this carefully and taken a position that effectively supports the Kurdish army in their battle, which will be a long-term battle, with the Islamic State. The Kurds have got the heart for this battle.
"The Kurdish president has made it very clear to western allies that he doesn't need their boys and girls on the ground. He just said give us the weapons and the wherewithal and the air cover and they will take this fight to Isis."
The embattled Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al Maliki, has agreed to step aside and support his nominated replacement, Haider al-Abadi, in the post.
Abadi, a veteran of Iraq's post-Saddam Hussein governments, was appointed on Monday after the country's president effectively deposed Maliki in an effort to break the political deadlock that has paralysed the government while jihadists sweep through the north of the country.
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis driven from their homes by Islamic extremists remain at risk even after the breaking of the siege of Mount Sinjar, Kurdish officials and humanitarian aid workers in the north of the country have warned. The UN signalled that the crisis in the wider region was far from over, and declared its highest level of emergency for more than 1 million people displaced by fighting this year in Iraq, putting the crisis on a par with those of Syria, South Sudan and the Central African Republic.
At least 50,000 displaced Yazidis are still trying to find shelter inside the Kurdish north after abandoning their homes and belongings as they escaped from Islamic extremists who ousted them from their ancient lands as they advanced towards Erbil.
Officials in the Kurdish capital say most of the new refugees have access to water and food, but very few have sufficient shelter. Every town square and most unfinished buildings between the Syrian Kurdish border and the region's third city, Duhok, remains crammed with Yazidis who are yet to find homes almost two weeks after they were first forced to escape to Mount Sinjar.
Scenes of deprivation on a barren mountaintop galvanised a US-driven international response and led to air strikes against jihadist positions on either side of the 72km (45-mile) ridge. Britain, Turkey, France and Australian also dropped food and water and Washington suggested it was considering returning some forces to Iraq to help the Yazidis escape.
But moves towards an extensive military mission were slowed on Thursday, after an assessment by US and British special forces on Mount Sinjar that most of those who needed help now had access to it. The US said many of those still on the southern ledge had chosen to remain there.
The Kurdish north is teeming with refugees two months after much of northern Iraq was emptied by the advance of militants from the Islamic State who have shattered centuries of coexistence in the area.
By some estimates, as many as 1.2 million exiles have made the journey to the Kurdish north since then, 200,000 of whom have arrived in the past fortnight alone. Hundreds of thousands of other Iraqis have been displaced from western and central Iraq in a mass movement of people that rivals the worst years of Iraq's civil war.
"Many of those displaced fled from Mosul and its surroundings when violence erupted there in June and July," said Dr Chiara Lepora, Iraq programme manager for Médecins Sans Frontières. "Some are fleeing for the second time, having first fled the violence in Anbar province to take refuge in Mosul."
The UNHCR said it was scrambling to provide tents and to establish camps for the new arrivals, who crossed into the poorest part of the Kurdish north, which is already a temporary home to refugees who have fled the civil war in Syria.
The UN said the scale of the humanitarian crisis was now on a par with Syria, South Sudan and the Central African Republic.
The US and France have rushed military aid to Erbil to help Kurdish Peshmurga forces take on ISIS, whose forces got as close as 50km from the city limits earlier in the week, before being pushed back by US air strikes.
Chancellor of the Kurdish Region Security Council, Masrour Barzani, told the Guardian that the Peshmurga had been badly outgunned in battle by a terror group that had looted US-supplied heavy weapons from military arsenals abandoned by the Iraqi Army in mid-June.
"We need all the help we can get," Barzani said. "Without it, the consequences will be too difficult for any of us to imagine.
British officials were keen to make clear that the UK was not bounced into the decision by the US to abandon the planned rescue mission from Mount Sinjar. British Tornado jets which mounted a surveillance mission over the mountain on Wednesday night also "could not identify people in the numbers previously estimated", No 10 said. British officials were fully involved in the US decision.
The announcement that Britain is prepared to arm the Kurds came as the Labour party, which blocked Cameron's attempts to launch military strikes against the regime of the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad last year, made clear that it was more supportive of British involvement in Iraq.
Peter Hain, the former cabinet minister and close ally of Ed Miliband who helped to defeat the government last year on Syria, said: "The genocidal attacks by Isis are in the same category as Kosovo 1999 and Sierra Leone 2000. Quite different to being propelled into the quagmire of a Syrian civil war.
"Although I do not support British soldiers fighting on the ground, we have to do everything else we can to provide the Kurds with the equipment they need to repel attacks and to stop Isis and its medieval barbarism. I believe the British public will support such an essentially humanitarian mission and if the prime minister consults other party leaders there will be no need to recall parliament. We need urgent common sense action not parliamentary grandstanding."
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/14/uk-britain-arms-supply-kurdish-forces-iraq-isis
OP: Cobra sounds badass. But it stands for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A. Clearly 'IS' or 'ISIS' are fascists and need to be dealt with by force either directly or indirectly. It's the only language they understand.
David Cameron is prepared to supply weapons directly to Kurdish forces fighting jihadists from the Islamic State (Isis) in northern Iraq, in a move that risks drawing Britain back indirectly into the country's conflict.
In a significant intensification of British involvement in the Iraq crisis, the foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, will tell his EU counterparts in Brussels on Friday that Britain is prepared to join France in arming the Kurds. Cameron and Nick Clegg agreed the plan at an emergency Cobra meeting.
The move was immediately welcomed by the chancellor of the Kurdish Region Security Council, who had pleaded with Britain earlier in the week to rally to the help of the Kurds. Masrour Barzani said: "If it's true, we welcome and appreciate the British decision to supply us with the effective weapons that we've been asking for."
The decision to pave the way for the possible supply of arms to Iraq means that the UK may once again bear responsibility - if only indirectly - for casualties in Iraq. Operation Telic, the name for the British military operation, ended in 2011. UK combat operations ended in 2009.
Government sources said Britain was not moving towards direct military intervention in Iraq. They said the decision to respond positively to a request to arm Kurdish forces was consistent with the government's approach of responding to a humanitarian crisis.
Britain previously indicated that it was only prepared to transport weapons to the Kurds on behalf of other EU countries. These were mainly Soviet-era weapons from former Warsaw-pact countries.
But Cameron and Clegg, the latter of whom took part Cobra meeting via a secure link from his Spanish holiday, agreed that Britain would now respond favourably to a request from the Kurds for direct military assistance. It is expected that Britain would initially provide hi-tech equipment, such as night-vision goggles. The Kurds have been trained on weapons from the former Soviet Union which means that they rely on eastern European countries for their arms. But Britain would provide weapons and ammunition if requested.
The decision to agree to such a request highlighted Britain's concerns about the challenge of defeating Isis forces, despite what the prime minister described as "good news" after Washington abandoned a rescue mission from Mount Sinjar. The decision was made after US forces on the ground found fewer than expected Yazidi refugees because the Kurds had already rescued many and US air strikes succeeded in beating back Isis forces.
Barack Obama hailed the success of the air strikes in breaking the Isis siege of Mount Sinjar. The US president said: "We broke the [Isis] siege of Mount Sinjar. We helped vulnerable people reach safety and we helped save many innocent lives. Because of these efforts, we do not expect there to be an additional operation to evacuate people off the mountain and it is unlikely that we are going to need to continue humanitarian airdrops on the mountain. The majority of the military personnel who conducted the assessment will be leaving Iraq in the coming days."
But Britain agrees with the US and France that the Kurds will need reinforcements amid mixed success in beating back Isis forces. "This is a long-term challenge and a long-term threat," one government source said. "You want to enable the forces in the region to be able to confront[Isis]."
A Downing Street spokesperson hinted at the change of tack when commenting on the Cobra meeting. The spokesperson said: "It is vital that Iraqi and Kurdish forces are able to stop the advance of [Isis] terrorists across the country … We will also continue our work to ensure that Kurdish forces have the military supplies they require, including transporting more equipment from eastern Europe. The foreign secretary will use the meeting of foreign ministers from across Europe to press for better coordination of aid and military supplies to Iraq."
No 10's spokesperson made clear that Britain agreed with Obama that the need for humanitarian air drops had lessened. "We are reviewing the need for additional airdrops, given that there appear to be adequate supplies on the mountain, but we will keep the option open if we establish there is further need. We will also maintain our Chinook helicopters in the region so we have the flexibility to help the most vulnerable if the need arises, and our Tornados will also stay out there in case we require further surveillance of the area."
Nadhim Zahawi, the Conservative MP who was born to Kurdish parents in Baghdad, welcomed the announcement. Zahawi, a member of the Downing Street policy board who flew to Irbil on Thursday evening, said: "It is important that we have looked at this carefully and taken a position that effectively supports the Kurdish army in their battle, which will be a long-term battle, with the Islamic State. The Kurds have got the heart for this battle.
"The Kurdish president has made it very clear to western allies that he doesn't need their boys and girls on the ground. He just said give us the weapons and the wherewithal and the air cover and they will take this fight to Isis."
The embattled Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al Maliki, has agreed to step aside and support his nominated replacement, Haider al-Abadi, in the post.
Abadi, a veteran of Iraq's post-Saddam Hussein governments, was appointed on Monday after the country's president effectively deposed Maliki in an effort to break the political deadlock that has paralysed the government while jihadists sweep through the north of the country.
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis driven from their homes by Islamic extremists remain at risk even after the breaking of the siege of Mount Sinjar, Kurdish officials and humanitarian aid workers in the north of the country have warned. The UN signalled that the crisis in the wider region was far from over, and declared its highest level of emergency for more than 1 million people displaced by fighting this year in Iraq, putting the crisis on a par with those of Syria, South Sudan and the Central African Republic.
At least 50,000 displaced Yazidis are still trying to find shelter inside the Kurdish north after abandoning their homes and belongings as they escaped from Islamic extremists who ousted them from their ancient lands as they advanced towards Erbil.
Officials in the Kurdish capital say most of the new refugees have access to water and food, but very few have sufficient shelter. Every town square and most unfinished buildings between the Syrian Kurdish border and the region's third city, Duhok, remains crammed with Yazidis who are yet to find homes almost two weeks after they were first forced to escape to Mount Sinjar.
Scenes of deprivation on a barren mountaintop galvanised a US-driven international response and led to air strikes against jihadist positions on either side of the 72km (45-mile) ridge. Britain, Turkey, France and Australian also dropped food and water and Washington suggested it was considering returning some forces to Iraq to help the Yazidis escape.
But moves towards an extensive military mission were slowed on Thursday, after an assessment by US and British special forces on Mount Sinjar that most of those who needed help now had access to it. The US said many of those still on the southern ledge had chosen to remain there.
The Kurdish north is teeming with refugees two months after much of northern Iraq was emptied by the advance of militants from the Islamic State who have shattered centuries of coexistence in the area.
By some estimates, as many as 1.2 million exiles have made the journey to the Kurdish north since then, 200,000 of whom have arrived in the past fortnight alone. Hundreds of thousands of other Iraqis have been displaced from western and central Iraq in a mass movement of people that rivals the worst years of Iraq's civil war.
"Many of those displaced fled from Mosul and its surroundings when violence erupted there in June and July," said Dr Chiara Lepora, Iraq programme manager for Médecins Sans Frontières. "Some are fleeing for the second time, having first fled the violence in Anbar province to take refuge in Mosul."
The UNHCR said it was scrambling to provide tents and to establish camps for the new arrivals, who crossed into the poorest part of the Kurdish north, which is already a temporary home to refugees who have fled the civil war in Syria.
The UN said the scale of the humanitarian crisis was now on a par with Syria, South Sudan and the Central African Republic.
The US and France have rushed military aid to Erbil to help Kurdish Peshmurga forces take on ISIS, whose forces got as close as 50km from the city limits earlier in the week, before being pushed back by US air strikes.
Chancellor of the Kurdish Region Security Council, Masrour Barzani, told the Guardian that the Peshmurga had been badly outgunned in battle by a terror group that had looted US-supplied heavy weapons from military arsenals abandoned by the Iraqi Army in mid-June.
"We need all the help we can get," Barzani said. "Without it, the consequences will be too difficult for any of us to imagine.
British officials were keen to make clear that the UK was not bounced into the decision by the US to abandon the planned rescue mission from Mount Sinjar. British Tornado jets which mounted a surveillance mission over the mountain on Wednesday night also "could not identify people in the numbers previously estimated", No 10 said. British officials were fully involved in the US decision.
The announcement that Britain is prepared to arm the Kurds came as the Labour party, which blocked Cameron's attempts to launch military strikes against the regime of the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad last year, made clear that it was more supportive of British involvement in Iraq.
Peter Hain, the former cabinet minister and close ally of Ed Miliband who helped to defeat the government last year on Syria, said: "The genocidal attacks by Isis are in the same category as Kosovo 1999 and Sierra Leone 2000. Quite different to being propelled into the quagmire of a Syrian civil war.
"Although I do not support British soldiers fighting on the ground, we have to do everything else we can to provide the Kurds with the equipment they need to repel attacks and to stop Isis and its medieval barbarism. I believe the British public will support such an essentially humanitarian mission and if the prime minister consults other party leaders there will be no need to recall parliament. We need urgent common sense action not parliamentary grandstanding."
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/14/uk-britain-arms-supply-kurdish-forces-iraq-isis
OP: Cobra sounds badass. But it stands for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A. Clearly 'IS' or 'ISIS' are fascists and need to be dealt with by force either directly or indirectly. It's the only language they understand.