MOSCOW, August 13 (RIA Novosti) – Britain is going to transport arms to Kurds, fighting against Islamic State insurgents, as radicals lay siege to the Kurdish capital Arbil in northern Iraq, according to Associated Press.
The United Kingdom has reportedly “agreed to transport from other contributing states some critical military re-supplies for the Kurdish forces,” the AFP cited Prime Minister David Cameron’s office as saying.
On Tuesday, the Royal Air Force dispatched two Chinook helicopters to the region “for use if we decide we need further humanitarian relief options," Cameron’s office said.
The Islamic State is a Sunni group that has been fighting in Syria and launched an offensive in Iraq in June. The group has taken over large parts of the country, with the goal of seizing Baghdad. Also in June, the group announced the establishment of a caliphate on the Iraq-Syria border.
Iraqi Kurds have already re-established military cooperation with Baghdad in an effort to drive the IS fighters back. But tens of thousands of Yazidi Kurds are still stranded atop Mount Sinjar after fleeing the IS insurgency. Yazidis are a religious minority in the country’s north, who now run the risk of being massacred by the radical Islamist group.
Like Moscow, the United Nations Security Council has called on all Iraqi communities to unite and respond to the threat to Iraq’s future.
