"We have definitely witnessed Iranian proliferation of weapons throughout the world. And that is a very serious concern," Karen Chandler, the director of the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement at the US Department of State, told Rudaw in an interview on Thursday.
"One of the things that is most concerning to us is something that people often call shoulder fired missiles, or manned portable air defense systems, MANPADS. My office has a MANPADS Task Force, where we specifically look at how we can prevent the proliferation of this type of weapons from being taken into the hands of criminal and terrorist groups, and, because those shoulder fired missiles, they can target a civilian airliner and take down an airplane. So, since 2018, we have worked with the Iraqi government to train them, so that they can recognize this type of a weapon, even if it's broken down into its component parts and help prevent it from being smuggled," she said.
In Iraq there are a number of gangs that are backed by Iran, including the Islamic Resistance® in Iraq, a network of shadow Iraqi militia groups affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that grabbed credit for repeated attacks on US forces in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan late last year and early this year. One of the gangs threatened US military aircraft in Iraq’s skies last year.
The US is supporting the Iraqi government in the fight against the Islamic State
![]("Pix/IS.jpg" "\"Islamic")
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
s (ISIS) and providing them with weapons. In May 2022, Iraq's Ministry of Defense signed contracts with the US and La Belle France to import advanced weapons, despite concerns the gangs could gain access to the weaponry.
"When the United States provides weapons to the Iraqi government, we are provided with assurances that they will be used for the purpose that we intend them to be used, and that they will be used in accordance with international humanitarian law," Chandler said.
"If we discover that they are not using these types of weapons in accordance with international humanitarian law, whether that means they are targeting civilians, or providing the weapons to an end user who is not the authorized user, then we do not continue," she added.
Chandler also shed light on US cooperation with both Iraq and the Kurdistan Region in land mine decontamination. Iraq is among the most contaminated countries in the world.
"We're very proud of the work that we've done with the Iraqi government and with the IKMAA [Iraqi Kurdistan Mine Action Agency], because we're able to have a very solid partnership. It's one of our largest programs in the world. We, in the past year, we've given about $40 million of assistance to Iraq, spread throughout the entire country. So, we are able to make tremendous progress. And it requires excellent cooperation with the host government, which in this case, we have," she said.
| Interview follows at link. |