Female Kurdish Peshmerga attend their graduation ceremony at a police academy in Zakho district of the Dohuk Governorate of the Iraqi Kurdistan province, Iraq, March 30, 2016. REUTERS/Ari Jalal Female Kurdish Peshmerga attend their graduation ceremony at a police academy in Zakho district of the Dohuk Governorate of the Iraqi Kurdistan province, Iraq, March 30, 2016. REUTERS/Ari Jalal

One Of The Most Important Forces Fighting ISIS Hasn’t Been Paid For Months


National Security/Foreign Policy Reporter
11:37 AM 04/13/2016



The Kurdish Peshmerga, one of the premier forces fighting Islamic State in northern Iraq, is buckling under budget deficits to the point it hasn’t been able to pay its troops for months.

The Peshmerga was one of the first forces to bring the fight to ISIS while the terrorist group was rolling over the traditional Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) for two years. The Peshmerga continue to fight ISIS along the northern front near Iraqi Kurdistan and the key northern city of Mosul. Though they have seen some success, the Kurds are now running out of money, meaning the coalition fighting ISIS could lose one of its most important fighting forces just as they are starting to regain ground.

“We need direct budgetary support,” said Qubad Talabani, the deputy prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), while speaking Wednesday at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy’s Washington Forum, making them one of the “most vulnerable entities in the coalition.”
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Talabani noted the Kurds are hemorrhaging money fighting ISIS. The KRG is currently operating on a “$100 million deficit per month.”

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