The 2024 National Defense Authorization Act passed by Congress notably includes a provision for equipping Iraqi Kurdistan’s Peshmerga forces with air defenses. Such a move would likely be welcomed in the autonomous region since it has come under repeated missile and drone attacks from neighboring Iran and Iran-backed militias in recent years, attacks against which it has had no defense.
The provision in the bill, passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate Dec. 14 and expected to be signed by President Biden, obligates the secretaries of defense and state to “develop a plan of action to equip and train Iraqi security forces and Kurdish Peshmerga forces to defend against attack by missiles, rockets, and unmanned systems” by Feb. 1, 2024, and implement it within 90 days of development.
Since the outbreak of the unprecedented Israel-Hamas War in October, U.S. troops have come under repeated rocket and drone attacks in Iraq and Syria. These attacks have targeted the U.S. troop base on the grounds of Erbil International Airport, EIA, in Iraqi Kurdistan’s capital.
EIA came under fire years before the onset of the current Gaza war, with the first rocket attack targeting the airport grounds carried out by militants in September 2020.
Many of these attacks are likely shots across the bow, intended to signal to the United States the capabilities of these militias to hit target its troops, even inside the relatively secure boundaries of the Kurdistan Region. Nevertheless, some attacks have directly endangered U.S. troops at EIA and civilians in the Kurdish capital.
For example, an explosive drone targeting the EIA troop base on Oct. 26 hit the second floor of the barracks housing U.S. troops and could have caused significant casualties and damage if it did not fail to explode, according to Reuters.
An attack against EIA on Feb. 15, 2021, saw a barrage of 14 rockets hit the base and a nearby residential area, killing a U.S. contractor in the former and severely injuring a civilian, who succumbed to those injuries a week later, in the latter.
Source : Forbes
