Amid the gloomy news of stalemates against the Islamic State, a bright spot is a dogged, disparate force known as the peshmerga in northern Iraq that just finished retaking a string of villages amid a six-month-long offensive.
But the Kurdish militia of more than 100,000 fighters remains underequipped in a survivalist war against invading terrorists who commandeered hundreds of American armored vehicles and turned them on innocent civilians and government troops.
The peshmerga, hardened after years of fighting Saddam Hussein’s soldiers, has an inadequate arsenal of armor-piercing projectiles to stop such an onslaught.
“The peshmerga continue to bravely and valiantly fight [the Islamic State], but it comes at a cost,” said one of two Kurdish officials who asked not to be identified for fear of antagonizing the Obama administration. “You need anti-armor to penetrate this kind of equipment.”
Fighters for the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, have killed about 1,300 peshmerga fighters and routinely release videos of Kurds they behead.
These officials say Baghdad is the obstacle. Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government alone decides what weapons get transferred from the capital to the semiautonomous Kurdistan Regional Government, the peshmerga’s home and base of operations.
“All equipment goes to the government of Iraq, and the government of Iraq distributes it,” said Army Col. Steve Warren, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq. “We do provide advice, but the final decisions are theirs.”
A Pentagon spokeswoman said the priority right now is equipping the Iraqi government forces and Sunni tribal fighters. A chief goal of the Obama administration’s Iraq war policy is to train and arm the Iraqi army so it can retake territory, especially in the Islamic State stronghold of Sunni-dominated western Iraq.
Baghdad is known for being leery of providing the Kurdistan Regional Government with front-line weapons, which it fears could be used in a war for full Kurdish independence.
Still, the Kurds find Baghdad’s restrictions ironic because they are the ones taking back territory in the north, as Iraqi government forces flee from places such as Ramadi in the west and cannot take them back.
The equipment shortage leaves the peshmerga outgunned and facing waves of terrorist-operated American military vehicles rigged with powerful explosives.
The Kurdish officials said the peshmerga owns only a handful of front-line anti-armor weapons, such as the European MILAN missile. It has hundreds of Swedish-designed, shoulder-fired AT-4s — a light, unguided weapon.
Peshmerga fighters say what they need are heavier, guided missiles, such as the longer-range U.S. TOWs and Javelins, with which they could kill armored vehicles at a safe range. They have received none, according to Kurdish sources.
Then there is the mobility problem. The peshmerga lacks armored vehicles or helicopters to take fighters into battle. Some resort to hailing village taxis to take them to the front, or they ride in World War II-era tanks and pickup trucks.
The U.S. has provided about 40 Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, far short of what is needed in a huge battle space.
The peshmerga relies heavily on coordinated U.S. airstrikes to stop vehicle bombs and kill terrorists occupying villages. But the Islamic State has countered the air war with smokescreens of burning tires or by waiting for dust storms — all in an effort to cloud the vision of U.S. pilots and sensors on remotely piloted vehicles.
This is one reason why hawks in Congress, such as Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, Arizona Republican, are demanding that the Obama administration insert target spotters into the battle. These Joint Terminal Attack Controllers specialize in identifying ground targets and relaying exact coordinates to pilots.
In northern Iraq, the peshmerga communicates with a joint command center in Irbil, the capital, staffed by Kurds, Americans and British military. The center then relays targeting information to pilots.
’To tip the balance’
U.S. Central Command, looking for good news in the ground war, issued a statement last week praising the peshmerga for its latest operation: a sweep of villages west of the oil-rich northern town of Kirkuk.
“Peshmerga fighters successfully penetrated [Islamic State] defensive positions, cleared fighters, liberated eight villages, and re-established government control over approximately [87 square miles] between Huwayjah and Kirkuk,” CentCom said.
“The peshmerga fighters continue to reduce [the Islamic State’s] initial gains in northern Iraq,” said Army Col. Christopher Garver, a spokesman.
CentCom said that in the past four weeks, the peshmerga conducted three offensive operations, returning 154 square miles of territory to government control while liberating 23 villages.
It is a different story from a year ago, when the Islamic State army swept across northern Iraq from Syria and easily captured Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, as government forces ran away.
The retreating Iraqis left behind thousands of Humvees and other American vehicles that the Islamic State terrorists immediately began converting into a favorite weapon — the vehicle-borne improvised explosive device — with which they have tormented Baghdad for years.
The Islamic State then set its sights on Kurdish towns to the north.
“We were ill-equipped and outgunned,” said a Kurdish official. “Overnight, we found ourselves against this ruthless enemy with a lot of heavy guns. We stood our ground, and we wanted to fight. But the challenge we had, we didn’t have the equipment to tip the balance.”
Kurdish officials say Baghdad inspects the equipment it receives before sending it to the peshmerga, forcing transport pilots to land and take off twice in the war-ravaged country.
They say they receive little information from the Ministry of Defense on what weapons are held in Baghdad rather than shipped to Irbil.
“We were running out of bullets while the bureaucracy was taking place in Baghdad,” one official said. “We cannot fight a heavy Humvee with an AK-47 rifle.”
A Pentagon spokeswoman told The Washington Times that the U.S. is coordinating an “enormous donation of weapons” to the Kurdistan Regional Government. These include 56,000 rounds of small-arms ammo, 1,000 AT-4s and 5,000 other anti-tank weapons, 45,000 rifles and machine guns, 677 mortars, and more than 150 vehicles, including the MRAPs.
Navy Cmdr. Elissa Smith said huge amounts of weapons are on the way from international donors, but some could be redirected if needed in other places.
The Kurdish forces were a priority early on as the Islamic State tried to gain more territory in northern Iraq beginning in August 2014.
“Since April, when their forward line of troops was established, the priority has shifted to Iraqi army, counterterrorism service and others more involved in offensive operations,” Cmdr. Smith said.
• Rowan Scarborough can be reached at rscarborough@washingtontimes.com.
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