Obama still dithering on what action if any to take.
Via Reuters
Iran has supplied weapons and ammunition to Iraqi Kurdish forces, Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani said Tuesday at a joint press conference with Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Arbil, capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region.
The direct arming of Kurdish forces is a contentious issue, because some Iraqi politicians suspect Kurdish leaders have aspirations to break away from the central government completely. The move could also be seen by some as a prelude to Iran’s taking a more direct role in broader Iraqi conflict.
“We asked for weapons and Iran was the first country to provide us with weapons and ammunition,” Barzani said.
Militants from the Islamic State have clashed with Kurdish peshmerga fighters in recent weeks and taken control of some areas on the periphery of Iraqi Kurdistan.
Earlier in the day, a car bomb was detonated in a mainly Shi’ite district of eastern Baghdad, killing 12 people and wounding 28, police and medical sources said. The bombing in the New Baghdad neighborhood followed a series of blasts in the Iraqi capital on Monday which killed more than 20 people. […]
Britain, France, Germany and Italy have also promised to send military assistance to Kurdish security forces to fight the Islamic State.
The United States has carried out a series of air strikes against the Islamic State fighters in northern Iraq in the past two weeks, partly to protect the Kurdish region from being overrun.
Zarif denied that Iran and the United States were discussing Iraq as part of talks between Iran and Western powers about Iran’s nuclear program.