Iraqi Kurdish Forces Help Defend Baghdad
The increase of terrorist bombings in Baghdad has been a catalyst for more consultation between Iraqi federal and Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces.
A few days after the storming of Abu Ghraib prison, which occurred on July 21, 2013, an Iraqi military force had cut off the main road leading to the Green Zone coming from the Karada Mariam neighborhood in central Baghdad. Meanwhile, vehicles of peshmerga forces, filled with heavy equipment, were entering the headquarters of the federal Ministry of Defense.
Until this moment, however, military leaders in Baghdad and Erbil refused to admit that peshmerga forces have gone to Baghdad to take part in a security operation. They only confirm that there was an agreement between them which was not implemented.
The story of the peshmerga involvement in security plans set by the military bureau of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki remains vague.
Hasan al-Sanid, a Shiite MP for the State of Law Coalition and chairman of the parliamentary Security and Defense Committee, told Al-Monitor that “any news about peshmerga forces in Baghdad is meaningless and unfounded.”
