The
following excerpts are from AINA.org:
(AP)
-- A senior Iraqi Kurdish official on Wednesday called for greater
support in the battle against the Islamic State group, including with
foreign troops, saying the Kurds are "alone" in the fight.
Fouad
Hussein, chief of staff to Kurdish President Massoud Barzani, said
the U.S.-led coalition airstrikes are helpful but "to finish
ISIS... you need to finish it on the ground. And on the ground, we
are most of the time alone. So we need partners."
"It
means advisers, it means special forces, it means a collective fight
against ISIS, it means equipment, it means munitions," Hussein
said.
Though
IS fighters have been forced to retreat from Kobani, the strategic
town on Syria's border with Turkey, the battlefield picture suggests
they are far from beaten in northern Iraq, where harsh winter weather
and thick mud underfoot hampers military moves.
The
Kurdish peshmerga fighters have struggled for months to inch ahead,
backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, which began in northern
Iraq.
Several
coalition countries have provided arms to the Kurdish forces but many
of those weapons have not yet been delivered to soldiers because most
require additional training.
Read
more by clicking below:
Iraqi Kurds Call for Foreign Ground Troops in Anti-Islamic State Fight
