RAF planes drop aid to Kurdish families stranded in mountains

Clean water and solar lamps for thousands who fled militants
Mission: a crew member on RAF Hercules as it drops aid over Iraq

Daredevil RAF pilots flew at just a few hundred feet to drop aid to tens of thousands of families battling to survive on barren mountains in Iraq after fleeing Islamist fanatics.

Nearly 16,000 litres of clean water, in reusable purification containers, and 816 solar lamps were parachuted into the Sinjar Mountains last night from two C-130 Hercules cargo planes.

The drop was part of an operation to save the desperate refugees from the Yazidi community from dehydration and starvation.

Daredevil: pilots flew at just a few hundred feet to drop aid

Huge numbers have fled to the high ground in northern Iraq after Islamic State (Isis) extremists took over their towns. Hundreds are already believed to have been slaughtered or abducted as Isis seized more ground in northern Iraq and marched towards Irbil, the capital of the Kurdish region.

“When we went up the mountain, snipers were firing at us. The girls were throwing themselves off the top of the mountain,” said school worker Khalaf Hajji. Dakheel, a shepherd, left his 95-year-old mother in a mountain cave after she told him: “‘I want to stay here: go, save yourselves.’”

Overseas Aid Secretary Justine Greening said: “Isis terrorists continue to contest towns and villages south of Erbil and in the Sinjar area, and the Yazidi community face appalling conditions, cut off on Mount Sinjar.

“UK aid is already helping the people who desperately need it. Last night the RAF successfully made a second drop of essential supplies.”

The mission follows an aborted attempt to deliver aid the previous night, when the RAF crew decided the stranded people could have been injured as they rushed to get the supplies. US planes also dropped aid packages last night.

Yesterday the US military said it carried out four air strikes targeting militants near the Sinjar Mountains.

American planes have carried out a total of 15 attacks so far. Lieutenant General William Mayville told reporters: “We assess airstrikes have slowed [Isis’s] operational tempo and temporarily disrupted their advances toward the province of Irbil. However, these strikes are unlikely to affect [Isis’s] overall capabilities or its operations in other areas of Iraq and Syria.”

A small number of British Tornado jets were being sent to Cyprus to fly surveillance missions to help the relief effort. They could switch to a combat role if the Government decides to join the US in military action.

Britain is also considering helping transport weapons to Kurdish fighters, as the US is now doing. Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond was due to chair a meeting of Whitehall’s Cobra emergency committee this afternoon amid political deadlock in Baghdad.

Yesterday Iraqi President Fuad Masum snubbed current Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and selected Haider al-Ibadi, the deputy speaker of parliament, to be the new prime minister, and gave him 30 days to present a government to lawmakers for approval.

RAF Hercules : the aircraft just before take-off

But Mr Maliki, who is blamed by many other politicians for sectarian policies that have sparked the country’s crisis, is refusing to stand aside.

President Barack Obama said the nomination of Mr al-Abadi was a “promising step forward”. US secretary of state John Kerry called on him “to form a cabinet as swiftly as possible”.

Comment

By committing Tornado jets to northern Iraq, the Government is edging closer to putting British service men and women into a combat role.

Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, must know from his experience at the Ministry of Defence that using the Tornados in “a surveillance role” doesn’t mean that they will stay out of the fight. If the planes’ surveillance and target acquisition kit illuminates a target on the ground, it is likely to draw a response in fire from the ground. The line is crossed.

If the air operations in dropping humanitarian aid as well as protection of the fleeing Kurds, Turcmen and Yazidis are to succeed, teams of forward aircraft controllers and cargo handlers must be put on the ground. All this makes nonsense of President Obama’s pledge “not to put boots on the ground”. Not to do so now, albeit in limited form, would be irresponsible and put the lives of American, British and other allied service personnel at risk.

Intelligence gathering and organisation on the ground are vital. In a fast-moving drama like the one unfolding in Kurdistan, a mission must be capable of adjustment to survive. Operations have to be altered to circumstances, decisions taken in an instant, to head off failure and defeat.

The need to establish rules of engagement and the need to spell out why British personnel are being sent back to Iraq require the recall of Parliament.

This is the lesson of 2003 and the way Tony Blair sent troops, on a false prospectus, into Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein.

The mission to Iraq then was led by a US President, George W Bush, and UK Prime Minister Blair, since accused of rashness bordering on irresponsibility. The latest mission to Iraq is being led by a US president and UK Prime Minister whose reluctance to engage fully, to act or react adequately, also seems to border on irresponsibility.

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