There is No Love Lost Between the Kurdish and Iraqi Forces

A Kurdish fighter, in camouflage, scuffles with an Iraqi

special forces soldier near Mosul Dam on Tuesday, a day

after a U.S.-backed victory.

Mackenzie Knowles-Coursin for The Wall Street Journal

The defeat of Islamist insurgents at the Mosul Dam has brought to the surface long-running tensions between the Kurdish and Iraqi forces that cooperated, with U.S. help, to reclaim the strategic site.

During a victory tour for journalists on Tuesday, Kurdish fighters, known as Peshmerga, scuffled with Iraqi military forces, and both tried aggressively to claim most of the credit.

Kurdish Peshmerga fighters sit on their humvees parked
on top of Mosul dam

When two black Humvees—one flying the Iraqi flag—ferried Iraqi special forces back from the battle site to a checkpoint connecting the dam with the northern city of Dohuk, the soldiers caused a commotion, jumping out of the vehicles and yelling. "We are the Iraqi army!" said one, forcefully patting his special forces badge. "They say they liberated the dam? Long live the Iraqi army!"

A Peshmerga fighter takes a moment to wash and cool off
at the shores of Mosul dam

Another officer stamped on a black flag of the Sunni insurgent group Islamic State while jamming an index finger in the air as cameramen swarmed his vehicle.

"We liberated the dam," he said, as an even angrier comrade approached and repeated the message more loudly: "We liberated the dam, not the Peshmerga."

Peshmerga forces guarding the checkpoint fired two shots in the air and the small crowd around the vehicles dispersed as they drove away.

An Iraqi Special Forces soldier with the Golden Division
points to the Iraqi Military badges decorating his arm

The conquest of the dam on Monday, following two days of fighting and nearly three dozen American airstrikes, was hailed in Iraq and abroad as a template for the fight against Islamic State militants threatening to break up Iraq.

President Barack Obama called it a demonstration of how Iraqi and U.S. forces can work together and pledged continued American support in the fight if the kind of cooperation demonstrated at the dam continued.

A Peshmerga fighter walks from one of the main locks of
Mosul dam

Despite the display of one-upsmanship, there were no signs the cooperation between the two forces would end here. The high-level political coordination involved in the operation means ground-level rivalries are unlikely to scuttle battlefield progress.

But the exchanges showed what Iraqi officials describe as growing impatience of Iraqi military forces with the Peshmerga, now the focus of urgent international efforts to provide arms and military support.

Read the rest of the story HERE and view a related video below:



I'll take the Kurds over Iraqi Forces any day of the week. When the going gets tough, The Iraqi Forces have a tendency to take their uniforms off and flee. The quickest way for a Kurd to shut-up an Iraqi soldier .. Ask them, 'How did ISIS get all those Weapons the U.S. gave you?'.

I Hope Team Obama has brains enough to see which group IS COMMITTED to Annihilating ISIS. The Iraqi Forces seem Gung-Ho after the work is all done .. Just my humble opinion.

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