Kurdish Peshmerga Say They Need Weapons After ISIS Seizes Iraqi Arsenal

... and this is why the idiots in Washington should have been supplying the Kurds with weapons DIRECTLY and not through the idiots in Baghdad:

Forces worry they cannot hold defensive lines

Just before Islamic State territory begins, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters have built a dirt wall across the road. But they don’t have much hope it would stop the militants’ favorite way of breaking front lines—armored trucks filled with explosives and driven by suicide bombers.

Lt. Jamal Derwish, pointing in center, commands the last 
outpost of Kurdish Peshmerga forces before Islamic-
State controlled territory in Dabbis, Kirkuk province 
in Iraq. Photo: Yaroslav Trofimov/WSJ

Lt. Jamal Derwish, the outpost’s commander, said his men already spotted three such armored vehicles in the area since Islamic State, or ISIS, overran the city of Ramadi last month and seized yet another arsenal of modern U.S.-made heavy weapons from the Iraqi army. Islamic State fighters, he said, have also filled trenches with oil to burn—something that would create a smokescreen to protect them from U.S. airstrikes.

“We’re facing a very serious threat. Without necessary weapons, this basic defensive line won’t be enough,” Lt. Derwish said shortly after his outpost came under Islamic State’s mortar fire. He held up an old rocket-propelled grenade, something that wouldn’t easily stop a massive armored truck barreling down the road.

“Right now, the only weapons we really have is this and the high morale of our Peshmerga,” he said.

The 160,000 Peshmerga—the troops of the autonomous Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq—may well be the most dedicated and combat-worthy units confronting Islamic State in Iraq. In a paradox of this conflict, they are also the least armed and equipped when compared with the Iraqi army, the Iranian-backed Shiite militias or, crucially, Islamic State itself. Peshmerga ammunition stocks are running low and whatever heavy weapons they have are mostly of Saddam Hussein-era vintage, commanders say.

While the Peshmerga also buckled under Islamic State’s rapid offensive last summer, they have since reconquered most lost territory and now are focused on holding the line. One of the most critical front lines is here near the Islamic State stronghold of Hawija, in the barren hill country punctuated by the burning gas wells of Kirkuk province. The area is home to a sizable chunk of the country’s oil wealth.

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