France to Send Weapons to Kurd Forces in Iraq
by VOA News August 13, 2014
France said it is sending weapons to Kurdish forces in Iraq to help them fight militants from the Islamic State group who have taken control of large areas in northern and western Iraq with little resistance from the Iraqi army.
French President Francois Hollande's office said Wednesday the arms would be delivered in a matter of hours with the coordination of the Iraqi government.
The president of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, Massoud Barzani, asked the international community for help fighting the militants earlier this week, and on Tuesday the European Union failed to agree on a deal to supply weapons but said individual countries were free to make their own deals with Iraq.
The United States also deployed another 130 military advisers to northern Iraq to help find ways to assist displaced Iraqis who are trapped on a mountain by the Sunni Muslim extremists.
Maliki not giving up
Meanwhile, Iraq's incumbent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says he will not give up power until a federal court rules on President Fouad Massoum's decision to appoint Haider al-Abadi to take over the prime minister post.
Maliki said during his weekly address on Wednesday that Abadi's appointment to replace him violated the constitution and "had no value."
Maliki's critics accuse him of marginalizing Iraq's minorities.
He has been trying to extend his eight-year rule for a third term as Iraq moves to form a new government, but he has lost the support of the international community.
On Wednesday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei lent his support to new Iraqi Prime Minister-designate Haider al-Abadi, the clearest sign yet that Tehran was no longer standing by Maliki.
"I hope the designation of the new prime minister in Iraq will untie the knot and lead to the establishment of a new government and teach a good lesson to those who aim for sedition in Iraq," Khamenei said during a meeting, according to a statement on his website.
Abadi has won swift endorsements from the United States and Iran as he called on political leaders to end feuds that have allowed Islamist militants to seize a third of Iraq.
US advisers
On Tuesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel stressed that the new deployment of U.S. military advisers to the city of Irbil in northern Iraq is limited to advising Iraqi security forces.
'As the president has made very clear, we're not going back into Iraq, in any of the same combat mission dimensions that we once were in in Iraq. Very specifically this is not a combat boots on the ground operation. We're not going to have that kind of operation,' Hagel said.
The Pentagon announced a similar deployment of up to 300 military advisers to Baghdad in June.
U.S. planes have been carrying out airdrops to get supplies to the thousands of refugees trapped on Mount Sinjar.
The military said late Tuesday it had conducted a sixth set of airdrops containing food and water, bringing the total amount of aid delivered so far to 100,000 meals and 27,000 gallons of water.
With the help of Kurdish forces in the region, more than 20,000 of the refugees have managed to escape Sinjar in the past few days.
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