Iraqi Defense minister Khaled al Obeidi said Tuesday that his country would provide weapons to the Kurdish fighters in their battle against the Islamic State militants.
"The Peshmerga are part of the Iraqi defense system and our support is with them. What the army has is for the Peshmerga, and what is required from the army is required from the Peshmerga," Obeidi said.
"When we have weapons, God willing, they will have their share like other Iraqi troops," Obeidi said after visiting a Peshmerga training center in the Kurdish city of Irbil, reports Voice of America.
Obeidi also said the Iraqi government would supply heavy weapons too to the Kurdish fighters as soon as it procures the weapons.
The Prime Minister of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish Regional Government, Nechervan Barzani said Sunday that airstrikes alone were not enough, adding that the international coalition should properly arm the Kurdish fighters. Barzani said that only light weapons were provided to the Peshmerga so far, while what they required was heavy weapons like anti- tank missiles. He also said that Germany has provided some anti- tank missiles while neither Iraq nor the U.S. has let the Peshmerga buy weapons from other countries.
Meanwhile, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, Nusra Front, established control over a town and several villages in Syria's Idlib province, reports Al Jazeera.
The monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the Nusra Front fighters captured the town of Khan al-Subul on Saturday after the withdrawal of the Harakat Hazm, a moderate opposition group.
The observatory said that the Nusra Front militants also captured five villages in the province.
Like the Islamic State militants, the Nusra Front also aims to overthrow Bashar al Assad's regime in Syria, and to establish a caliphate.
