ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Four US aircraft carrying additional military advisors that Washington said it was sending to northern Iraq arrived in Erbil on Wednesday, a source told Rudaw.
“Four V-22 Osprey aircraft landed at Erbil International Airport,” the source said. “(US) military experts got off the aircraft and were received by (Kurdish) military and political officials.”
US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced Tuesday that the military has sent 130 additional advisors to northern Iraq to plan the evacuation of refugees fleeing Islamic State (IS/ISIS) militants.
USA Today quoted an unidentified Defense Department official as saying that marines and special operations forces were sent to Erbil to assess the humanitarian crisis in the Shingal mountains, where thousands of Kurdish Yezidis escaping IS militants are stuck.
The American experts arrived amid greater European support to arm the Kurds, who have remained a bulwark against an IS advance in northern Iraq, but who are fighting a force equipped with advanced US weapons captured from Iraqi troops.
France announced Wednesday that it is sending arms to Peshmerga forces in response to the Kurds' "urgent need" for support against the radical militants.
The French presidency said in a statement that the arms shipment will be delivered "in the coming hours" and had been welcomed by authorities in Baghdad.
Meanwhile, a high-level European Union diplomatic meeting, called by France late Tuesday, said the EU would also consider the Kurds’ need for urgent military support.
Britain also has stepped up its role in northern Iraq, but mainly to help with the refugees.
US jets have run bombing missions on IS positions near Erbil since President Barack Obama authorized airstrikes last Thursday.
But the missions to bolster the Kurdish forces have provoked mixed reactions in the US, a nation that seeks to tackle Islamic extremism and stop genocide without getting bogged down in another costly war.
Obama has been at pains to explain that strikes on Islamic State militants are limited to protecting US staff in Erbil and halting a genocide on Yezidis and other minority sects at the hands of IS militants.
The Boeing Osprey aircraft which the US military said were to help with the Yezidis on the mountain are capable of landing and taking off vertically.
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