Iraq-ISIS Conflict of 2014

This is a page for whatever ACLOS eventually covers regarding the Iraq-ISIS conflict of 2014.

See also: Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham

ISIS liberates Mosul‎

Iraqi Air Force

 * Reuters, June 3, 2014: Lockheed to deliver first of 36 F-16s to Iraq this week
 * - Lockheed Martin Corp this week will deliver the first of 36 F-16 fighter jets to Iraq, marking what Baghdad's envoy to the United States called a "new chapter" in his country's ability to defend its vast borders with Iran and other neighbors.
 * Iraqi Ambassador Lukman Faily will travel to Lockheed's Fort Worth, Texas, plant on Thursday for a ceremony at which Lockheed and the U.S. government will formally deliver the first F-16 to Iraq.... "Iraq is a large country with over 3,600 km of borders, and we need to protect them," Faily told Reuters in a telephone interview. "We as a country didn't have that capability before."
 * A group of three or four new jets will be ferried to Iraq before the end of the year.


 * Star Telegram, June 6, 2014: June 5 Lockheed Martin delivers first F-16 to Iraqi air force
 * Iraq, which the U.S. invaded and where its military spent years fighting insurgents over the past decade, took delivery of the first of 36 F-16 fighter jets being built in west Fort Worth.
 * Lukman Faily, Iraq’s ambassador to the United States, said the F-16s will allow the rebuilding Iraqi air force to protect its own borders. Taking delivery of the first fighter sends “a clear sign to the world and the region that a stable and strong Iraq in a partnership of choice with the United States is what we are after.”
 * Iraq’s national security adviser, Falih Al-Fayyadh, said the F-16 will be “a weapon in the hands of all the people” to defend the new republic and its constitution. “To have the Iraqi people and the U.S stand side by side to fight this terrorism, there are no words to describe it,” he said.
 * Iraq first announced its intent to purchase 18 F-16s in 2011, and followed with a second order for 18 more last year.... Lockheed will continue building the planes for Iraq at a rate of about one a month in Fort Worth, ... The first two F-16s are expected to be flown to Iraq sometime later this year.


 * "The (Iraqi) air force hasn’t had jet fighters since 2003, when the U.S.-led coalition that invaded the country destroyed the last remnants of Saddam Hussein’s once-large air force." (IB Times, June 12)
 * World Tribune, June 8 U.S. delivers first new F-16 to Iran satellite, Iraq
 * The Shi’ite-led government in Baghdad enjoys friendly relations with Iran and is widely regarded as a strategic ally.


 * June 10: Sunni extremist group ISIS liberates Mosul‎. United States refuses immediate air assistance, debating conditions to impose on the Iraqi government first. Iran offers its Air Force assistance without precondition. Syria's Air Force attacks ISIS at the border (which side is disputed). The US warns both not to interfere with the delicate process underway.


 * BBC News, June 26 Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki: Russian jets will turn tide
 * "God willing within one week this force will be effective and will destroy the terrorists' dens," he said.
 * He said that the process of buying US jets had been "long-winded" and that the militants' advance could have been avoided if air cover had been in place. Isis (sic) and its Sunni Muslim allies seized large parts of Iraq this month.
 * Mr Maliki was speaking to the BBC's Arabic service in his first interview for an international broadcaster since Isis - the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant - began its major offensive.
 * "I'll be frank and say that we were deluded when we signed the contract [with the US]," Mr Maliki said.
 * "We should have sought to buy other jet fighters like British, French and Russian to secure the air cover for our forces; if we had air cover we would have averted what had happened," he went on.
 * He said Iraq was acquiring second-hand jet fighters from Russia and Belarus "that should arrive in Iraq in two or three days".
 * ... The US, which backs the Iraqi government, has stressed that the militants can only be defeated by Iraq's own forces.


 * Defnse News, June 27 A Gannet News Service:
 * The Pentagon pushed back Friday on comments made by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki that the US is slow-rolling a sale of Lockheed Martin F-16 fighters to Baghdad.
 * “There’s been no slow-rolling,” Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby told reporters at a press briefing on Friday. ... Kirby said the first two F-16s are scheduled for delivery in the fall as has been planned for months. “I don’t know how one can make the case that we’re slow-rolling it when they weren’t even supposed to be delivered for another few months,” Kirby said. “We’re still committed to the program. We’re still committed to the sale. And the process continues to churn, even given the unrest in Iraq.''”

(suggested in the last is that the ISIS invasion should perhaps slow or stop the process.)


 * June 30, The Aviationist: video of first arrivals from the north.