WASHINGTON ¨C The Iraqi government provided a planeload of ammunition to fighters from Iraq¡¯s semiautonomous Kurdish region on Friday, a U.S. official said, in an ¡°unprecedented¡± act of military cooperation between Kurdish and Iraqi forces brought on by an urgent militant threat.
The official said Iraqi security forces flew a C-130 cargo plane loaded with mostly small-arms ammunition to Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, in a bid to strengthen the region¡¯s peshmerga fighters as they struggle to keep militants from the Islamic State, an al-Qaida offshoot, at bay.
¡°This is unprecedented,¡± the official said on condition of anonymity. ¡°Developments over the last few days have refocused the issue, and we¡¯ve seen unprecedented cooperation between Baghdad and Irbil in terms of going after (the Islamic State), not only in terms of conversation but in terms of actual support.¡±
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