Iraqi Military Equipment

Equipment of the Iraqi Armed Forces

The Iraqi military has never fully recovered from the Coalition invasion of 2003. Despite years of training and hundreds of millions of US dollars, the Iraqi military dissolved without much of a fight in the face of the offensive by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS/Daesh). At least 15,000 Iraqi soldiers equipped with advanced American equipment and main battle tanks fled from a force about one-tenth that size equipped with light weapons and technicals. Since the complete collapse of Iraqi forces in 2014 after the battle of Mosul, the Iraqi military has regrouped and been retrained by instructors from at least a dozen different countries, including the United States, Canada, Denmark, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, claims of ethnic cleansing have persisted, with some stating that Iraqi military/police forces either took part in or allowed acts of violence to take place. 

The Iraqi military is supported by predominately-Shia militias, known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), some of whom receive weapons, training, and other supplies from Iran. In the north, they are supported by the Kurdish Peshmerga. Recently the Iraqi military has made some solid advances, with heavy Coalition air support. The cities of Ramadi and Hit have been cleared in the past few months, and despite extremely heavy levels of destruction to those cities, they are no longer under the control of the extremists. 

Iraqi Army

Main Battle Tank

•  M1A1 Abrams
•  T-72
•  T-55

Armored Reconnaissance Vehicle 

•  BRDM-2
•  EE-9 Cascavel 
•  Fuchs NBC Recce 

Infantry Fighting Vehicle

•  BMP-1
•  BTR-4
•  BTR-80A

Armored Personnel Carrier, Tracked 

•  M113A2 (Talha)
•  MT-LB

Armored Personnel Carrier, Wheeled 

•  Akrep/Scorpion
•  Cobra

Protected Patrol Vehicle 

•  Barracuda
•  Caiman
•  Dzik-3
•  ILAV Badger 
•  Mamba
•  International MaxxPro

Self-Propelled Artillery 

•  152 mm Type-83
•  155 mm M109
•  M109A1
•  M109A5

Towed Artillery 

•  130 mm M-46/Type-59
•  152 mm M-20
•  152 mm M198

MLRS

•  122 mm BM-21
•  220 mm TOS-1A

Mortar

•  81 mm M252 
•  150 mm M120
•  240 mm M240

MANPATS

•  9K135 Kornet (AT-14 Spriggan)

Armored Recovery Vehicle 

•  BREM
•  M88A1/2
•  T-54/55 ARV
•  Type-653
•  VT-55A

Attack Helicopter

•  Mil Mi-28NE Havoc
•  Mil Mi-35M Hind

Multirole Helicopter 

•  SA352 Gazelle
•  Bell IA407
•  H135M
•  Mil Mi-17 Hip

Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Helicopter 

•  OH-58C Kiowa

Transport Helicopter 

•  Bell 205
•  Bell 206B3 JetRanger
•  Bell T407

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle 

•  CH-4

Anti-Ship Missile 

•  9K114 Shturm (AT-6 Spiral)
•  AR-1
•  Ingwe

Iraqi Navy

Offshore Patrol Craft

•  Al Basra (US River Hawk)

Coastal Patrol Craft w/ AShM

•  Fateh (Italian Diciotti)

Patrol Boat

•  Swiftships 35
•  Predator (PRC-27m)
•  Al Faw

River Patrol Boat 

•  Type-200
•  Type-2010

Iraqi Air Force 

Fighter/Ground Attack

•  General-Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon
•  F-16C
•  F-16D

Attack

•  Aero L-159 Albatros 
•  Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoot
•  Su-25
•  Su-25K
•  Su-2UBK

Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance 

•  Cessna AC-208B Combat Caravan
•  SB7L-360 Seeker
•  Beechcraft King Air 350ER

Transport 

•  Lockheed-Martin C-130E Hercules
•  Lockheed Martin C-130J-30 Hercules 
•  Antonov An-32B Cline 
•  Beechcraft King Air 350
•  Cessna 208B Grand Caravan
•  Cessna 172

Training

•  CH-2000 Sama
•  Lasta-95
•  T-6A

Air-to-Surface Missile 

•  AGM-114 Hellfire 

Laser-Guided Bomb

•  GBU-12 Paveway 

Air Defence Command 

Self-Propelled Surface-to-Air Missile System

•  96K6 Pantsir-S1 (SA-22 Greyhound)
•  M1097 Avenger

MANPADS

•  9K338 Igla-S (SA-24 Grinch) 

Towed Anti-Aircraft Gun

•  23 mm ZU-23
•  57 mm S-60

Battle of Kobanê and a Human Exodus

It is mid-2014 and fighting is raging all across Syria and Iraq. In northern Syria, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS (Henceforth Daesh), is on the offensive. Throughout July and August, thousands of ethnic Kurds fled north toward Turkey, many through the border town of Kobanê. Kobanê is the seat of the Kobanê canton and is a local headquarters of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), and is thus an important strategic location to hold. Furthermore, its population of approximately 50,000 (pre-war) makes it one of the larger cities in Kurdish northern Syria, also known as Rojava. Thus, the YPG was determined not to lose the city.

Kurdish YPJ (Women's Protection Units) soldier in front of a YPG soldier

Advancing rapidly toward Kobanê was Daesh, high on their recent successes in Iraq (including sacking the second-largest city in the country, Mosul) and bloated with military equipment (most of which was captured near Mosul). Also Captagon. They were also high on that. In any case, they were equipped with some pretty hardcore weaponry, ranging from anti-aircraft artillery mounted in pickup trucks to main battle tanks and rocket artillery, along with thousands of American HMMWVs. The defenders in Kobanê had mere Kalashnikovs and Molotov cocktails, maybe a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) scattered here or there.

Mark was reportedly unaware that he had aided and abetted ISIS when he traded in his truck

Captured T-54/55 with a North Korean aftermarket laser rangefinder mounted above the barrel

The assault on Kobanê began in early September, and by the end of the month the fighting had ground to a halt as the war went from open fields to house-to-house combat. Everywhere Daesh advanced they left infested with an array of anti-personnel traps inside houses and alleyways. Many began referring to Kobanê as the Kurdish Stalingrad, hearkening back to the famous WWII battle in which the Soviets, against overwhelming Nazi technology and training, turned back the German army and reversed the tide of the entire war in Europe.

Turkish tanks observe the battle from across the border

On September 27th, 2014, the first coalition airstrike took place near Kobanê, with an American F-15E targeting a Daesh headquarters building and two armored vehicles. Thus began a pattern of coalition airstrikes being coordinated by YPG forces on the ground, a task now handled primarily by US and coalition special forces.

Kobanê almost halfway under Daesh control

Despite heavy coalition air support, Daesh managed to push the YPG almost out of the city. Early in September (9/14) the YPG and elements of the Free Syrian Army had formed a joint-operations room known as Euphrates Volcano with which they could coordinate their fight against Daesh. This alliance played a key role in the battle of Kobanê, with reinforcements from the FSA and the YPG arriving via Turkey throughout the fall and early winter of 2014.

Announcement of the Euphrates Volcano Joint Operations Room

Try as they might, Daesh could not push the YPG/FSA out of the city, and by spring 2015 the battle was pushing back out of the city. Kobanê never fell, and today is the seat of the entire Kobanê canton, which stretches from the Euphrates river in the west all the way to the border with the Jazira canton in the east. However, evidence of the massive human exodus remains visible from space, and can be seen with Google Earth.

Kobanê today (2 May 2016), marked here as Ayn al-Arab

Thousands of cars parked at the Turkish/Syrian border, abandoned by their owners in the flight northward 

Despite heavy levels of destruction, Kobanê never fell and lives on, rebuilding as I write this, with thousands moving back to the city every month. In the hell that is the Syrian civil war, we can count this one as a victory for the "good guys".

Iraqi Citizens Storm Green Zone, Parliament

Several days ago, 30 April, frustrated with a lack of reforms and accountability from an increasingly-corrupt government, thousands of Iraqi constituents of Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr took to the streets of Baghdad and surrounded the so-called Green Zone. The Green Zone is a fortified part of the capital city that houses the government offices and embassies, and is supposed to be one of the most secure locations in the country. 

al-Sadr had previously threatened to stage a sit-in at the Green Zone, but as of this writing is not known to have made any overt calls to action to incite what followed. As protesters continued to arrive around the Green Zone, others began scaling the concrete blast walls which had been erected by the Americans during the occupation. Ropes were tied to the tops of the wall segments, which were pulled down by the crowd. Hundreds poured in through the gap as still more arrived in waves. The security forces did little if anything to stop the protesters, in many cases clearly standing aside and watching as people rushed past. The only time any force was used was when protesters attempted to scale the walls of the American embassy, at which point tear gas was deployed.

 The mob focused its attention on the parliament building, which was being rapidly evacuated of MPs. An unfortunate few were either trapped inside the building or subjected to flying fists and insults from the crowd that smashed its way into the parliament building. As more and more people streamed into the building, many took to ransacking the facility and caused an as-yet undetermined amount of damage. Some government ministers fled to Baghdad International Airport, which was reportedly besieged by protesters to prevent said ministers from fleeing the country, although this has not been verified save for a few news sources. 

As I mentioned previously, the lack of reform and accountability fed this protest-turned-riot. People are also frustrated with the military's lack of progress against Daesh, and in particular with the increasingly-sectarian nature of the war. But above all else, corruption is the main complaint of the people, ranging from traffic cops charging extra to get out of tickets to military-sanctioned death squads patrolling the cities at night. Iraq is at an important crossroads, and its future is less sure than ever before. What happens in the next weeks may well determine the outcome of Iraq's future for generations.