Defense of the Peshmerga: weapons sent from Europe

08/11/14

To counter Isis the Peshmerga army relies on its 200.000 soldiers. The first peshmerga units were established in the 1920s, at the birth of the Kurdish independence movement.

In the 1991, in the months following the Gulf War, the peshmerga were the protagonists of a revolt against Saddam Hussein, which led to the establishment of the autonomous Kurdish Republic within the Iraqi state. Between the 1995 and the 1998 were engaged in the so-called Kurdish civil war, fought precisely between the peshmerga and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP).

They are mostly veterans of fighting against Iraqi government forces and clashes between Kurdish factions. The female regiment consists of four battalions and a commander for each brigade. Over time this army has equipped itself with various individual weapons. Among these the AK-47 Kalashnikov, the Russian AKM rifle, the American assault rifle M4A1 together with the M16A4, the Iraqi Tabuk rifle (assembled in the Al-Qadissiya Establishments) and finally the Russian precision rifle Dragunov.

Anti-aircraft stands out the Pantsyr-S1, whose export cost is 14.6 million dollars. Added to this are the Russian rocket launcher 107 mm BM-21 Grad and the Chinese 122 mm Type-63. The helicopter fleet does not exceed the 30 units: among these the Mil Mi-17, Mil Mi-8, Sikorsky S-333 and Eurocopter EC-120. However, the plunging of the situation has led some European States to supply weapons to the Kurds-peshmerga for greater support and protection. Here are some details:

ITALY: Defense Minister Pinotti has sent MG 500 / 42 machine guns, 59 100 machine guns, 12.7mila ammunition for each of the two types of weapons (national material), 250 rocket rpg1.000, 7 rocket rpg1.000 and 9mila ammunition for machine guns to the Peshmerga 400. Soviet. There is talk of a financial coverage of around 1,9 million.

The Browning M2 12,7 mm heavy machine gun nicknamed "Ma Deuce" by the military who use it is a heavy weapon. In the 1932 the original project was made small changes such as the barrel hole to improve the cooling of the same that led to the redefinition of the weapon as M2.

The machine gun Beretta MG 42 / 59 instead is an Italian variant of the MG3 of the Bundeswehr, in turn a recalibrated copy of the MG 42 of the German of the Second World War. The weapon, produced under license by Beretta, with parts produced by Whitehead Motofides and Franchi, is called MG 42 / 59 from the year of its introduction into service, the 1959.

We come to rockets: the RPG-7 has been used extensively since the 60 years onwards, and many countries have made copies of it. The RPG, which in Russian literally means "raketny prototitankovy granatomet" (rocket anti-tank grenade), has exactly the same definition even with English words (Rocket propelled grenade), and is a different weapon from the Bazooka. The range against stationary targets is nominally 500 meters, 400 against moving vehicles. The maximum range is 920 meters, because there is a quill in time to explode the rocket, so that often, against airplanes and especially helicopters, RPGs have been used for anti-aircraft role, with the aim of damaging aircraft with explosions of explosions about 1km away.

GERMANY: 5 troop transport vehicles Dingo, 30 anti-tank missile launchers Milan with 500 missiles, 240 Panzerfaust rocket launchers with 3.500 rockets, one thousand hand grenades, 8.000 G3 assault rifles with 2 million ammo and 8 thousand G-36 with 4 million bullets, 40 MG machine guns with a million bullets for a total total value of 70 million.

UNITED KINGDOM: The UK Defense Ministry has agreed to send heavy machine guns and 500.000 ammunition to Kurdish forces fighting the Islamic State of Isis. Urgent military support to provide Kurdish forces with additional firepower to defend the front line, protect civilians and repel ISIS rebels. In a note written to the Parliament, the British secretary of defense, Michael Fallon stated that the weapons sent have a value of about 1,6 million pounds for transport costs estimated at around 475.000 pounds.

CZECH REPUBLIC: 18 million caliber 7,62 bullets, 5.000 rockets for Rpg-7 and 5.000 hand grenades, for a total value of 2 million dollars.

The issue is complicated for Italy above all from a legal point of view. At the Italian regulatory level, the reference is the 185 law of 1990 (New regulations on the control of export, import and transit of armament materials). Among the Italian weapons sent to the Kurds are a batch of Soviet-made weapons seized from the trafficker Zhukov and kept for years hidden in the reserves of the Sardinian island of La Maddalena. A colossal arsenal of missiles, rockets, ammunition and kalashnikovs seized in the 1994 at the cargo Jadran Express, blocked in the Otranto channel as part of the UN embargo against the former Yugoslavia. In the 200 containers embarked there were 30 thousand kalashnikovs with over 20 million bullets, 50 launchers and 400 antitank missiles AT-4 Spigot, 50 rocket launchers of the type BM-21 with 5.061 Grad rockets, hundreds of rocket launchers Rpg-7 and Rpg- 9 with 10 thousand rockets. In the 2001, when the handcuffs were triggered, the Turin magistracy seized the entire load transferred to the Maddalena depots. The trial saw the acquittal of the accused because the judges considered foreign traffic abroad not punishable (the weapons came from the former Soviet depots and were directed to Rijeka, port from where they had to reach Bosnia). However, a sentence by the Turin Court of 2006 prepared for the destruction of the seized weapons but it was never implemented ending up being neglected both from the right and from the left. A portion of these weapons was provided in the 2011 to the Libyan rebels in Benghazi who fought against Gaddafi's army.

The role of Italy in Kurdistan never adapted to the strategic position and the economic potential of the area in question can be summarized in that of appearance with respect to major players who have economic interests related to oil wells in the area between Mosul and Kirkuk, the latter defined by the Kurds "the cradle of their civilization".

The Italian submission of small arms then also presupposes another basic choice. The idea is not to antagonize the Iraqi government as a possible dispatch of heavy weapons could sustain Kurdish independenceism over time.

Roberto Colella

(in the opening picture an ANA soldier with an RPG-7 - USMC source)