‘US plane drops arms for Daesh in Iraq’

Several Iraqi policemen claim to have seen US aircraft dropping weapons and munitions for Daesh terrorists in a region west of the Anbar province on Friday. 

In a video posted on Iraq’s al-Maaloomah news website on Sunday, they are purportedly heard saying that the American plane had also jammed their communication devices in the Hadisah Island district.

"There is an American aircraft seen at four o’clock in the morning on Friday over the Hadisah Island district of the Anbar province, delivering weapons and munitions to Daesh criminals,” one of the policemen says.

"The plane proceeded to jam radar devices of the police regiment stationed in Hadisah Island to prevent contact between the affiliates and the headquarters of the regiment," he added.

The man said they had seen a military vehicle of Daesh arriving in the region a few minutes later and transferring the weapons to the place the group controlled.

In the video, the man and his associates are heard appealing to Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi to follow up the issue.  

The Iraqi army and the volunteer Hashd al-Shaabi forces liberated the district from Daesh terrorists just last month.

US military surge

On Friday, US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Baghdad where he said Daesh was losing ground, including more than 40 percent of the territory that they once controlled in the country.

The United States, which withdrew its forces from Iraq in 2011, has redeployed several thousand as part of a coalition, which it says, it is leading against Daesh.

President Barack Obama is reportedly weighing an increase in the number of American troops in Iraq but Kerry said there had been no formal request from the Iraqis and the issue had not been raised on Friday.

US officials said last week Washington was also considering to greatly increase the number of its special operations forces deployed to Syria.

The US, they said, looked to “accelerate recent gains” against Daesh.

Critics, however, questioned motives behind the plan, citing Washington's failure to commit troops when Daesh was overrunning Syrian and Iraqi cities one after another.

Military might projection  

On Saturday, the US Air Force deployed B-52 bombers to Qatar, the first time they have been based in the Middle East since the end of the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

"The B-52 demonstrates our continued resolve to apply persistent pressure on Daesh and defend the region in any future contingency," said Charles Brown, commander of US Air Forces Central Command.

Brown said the bombers would be able to deliver precision weapons and carry out a range of missions, including strategic attack, close-air support, air interdiction, and maritime operations.

The US has seen its projected military might overshadowed by a relatively successful Russian campaign in Syria. Washington's recent flexing of muscles is seen as part of a bid to reassert its dominance.

Arms shipment history 

In October 2014, Daesh released a new video in which it bragged it recovered weapons and supplies that the US military intended to deliver to Kurdish fighters in the Syrian city of Kobani.

Some Iraqi MPs have also accused the US of deliberately arming Daesh, citing an arms air-drop case in Tikrit, but government officials have rejected it was intentional. 

In Syria, the US military has airdropped tons of ammunition to militants while softening its opposition to using the materiel to attack President Bashar al-Assad.

On Friday, the US government's Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) website detailed arms shipment to militants in Syria, showing it delivered 3,000 tonnes of weapons in December 2015 despite a ceasefire.

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