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Safin Hamed / AFP / Getty Images
The president of Iraqi Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani, accused Western countries on Wednesday of not providing enough heavy weapons to help Kurdish peshmerga forces deliver a "decisive blow" to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Western powers see the Kurds as a vital bulwark against ISIL, which has captured large expanses of Iraq and Syria and declared an Islamic "caliphate" that extends across the border between the two. France, Britain, Germany and others have been arming the Kurds, whose Soviet-era weaponry has proved ineffective against ISIL fighters equipped with hardware plundered from the Iraqi army after it abandoned its posts in June.
"We'd like to thank the members of the [anti-ISIL] coalition for the support they have provided, but ... all the support we have received so far is not up to the level that is needed," Barzani told France 24 in an interview aired on Wednesday.
"The heavy weapons systems that we need, especially in terms of quality and quantity, for example the APCs [armored personnel carriers], the helicopters, the artillery we need for a decisive war against them [ISIL] — we have not received these types of weapons," he said.
France says it has provided machine guns and munitions and has promised to give "sophisticated" weapons to Iraqi Kurds. Some 200 French special forces are also on the ground training the Iraqi Kurds.
Germany has said it is sending weapons to equip 4,000 Kurdish fighters, including machine guns, grenades, anti-tank systems and armored vehicles. Britain has said it will provide anti-tank weapons, night-vision goggles, radar and body armor.
But Barzani said the pledges were not sufficient.
"Is there a ceiling on the heavy weapons systems that we should receive in terms of the quantity and quality? The answer is not very clear to us," he said.
Since August, a United States-led coalition has launched airstrikes against ISIL in Iraq and Syria, including in and around the town of Kobane, on the Syrian side of the border with Turkey and where some 150 Kurdish defenders are trying to repel an ISIL onslaught.
Meanwhile, a suicide car bomber struck in the heart of the northern Iraqi Kurdish city of Erbil Wednesday, killing at least four people, a spokesman for the Erbil governor said.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the midday attack near the ancient citadel in Erbil, capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq and where such attacks are rare.
The last major attack in Erbil was more than one year ago, when fighters launched a coordinated suicide and car bomb attack on the headquarters of the security services. Another blast took place this August, but there were no casualties.
Erbil has remained mostly calm, but it lies close to the front lines in Iraq's war against ISIL. The city has taken in thousands of refugees who fled the group's summer blitz that captured large swaths of northern and western Iraq, as well as a third of neighboring Syria.
Mayor Nawzad Hadi told the state-run Rudaw TV channel that the bomber tried to enter the citadel grounds but failed, so he detonated his explosives-laden car outside the complex.
The mayor said properties in the area suffered significant damage, but it was unclear if the citadel, claimed to be one of the world's longest continuously inhabited landmarks, was damaged. The hilltop castle has a history stretching back more than 8,000 years. In 2007, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, oversaw a project geared at restoring and preserving the ancient site.
Kurdish security forces swiftly sealed off the area. Streets outside the castle were lined by charred cars and blood stained the pavement as ambulance workers rushed to help the victims.
Al Jazeera and wire services
More than 150 Kurdish boys were abducted by ISIL for 'religious education,' beaten and forced to watch beheading videos.
Move comes a day after US began airdropping arms to defenders of the besieged Syrian town.
News of direct support for the Kurds comes as Prime Minister Maliki’s government faces acute political crisis.
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