Kasım İleri
October 12, 2016•Update: October 12, 2016
By Kasim Ileri
WASHINGTON
The U.S. military has taken advanced system into Iraq to fight Daesh’s flying explosives, a U.S.-led coalition’s spokesman said Wednesday.
“We've seen the enemy use a variety of drones and improvised drones and modified drones,” Col. John Dorian told reporters in a videoconference call from Baghdad.
According to Dorrian, Daesh drones are “not an existential threat and not something that's militarily significant” but the coalition has brought additional capabilities into Iraq including a system called Drone Defender and other advanced technologies.
Dorrian added that there are already some systems on the ground that the coalition is using to detect, track and defeat Daesh’s drones.
A U.S. Defense official told Anadolu Agency the systems deployed include "kinetic and non-kinetic" ones.
According to Dorrian, Daesh is flying drones over U.S.- and Iraqi-controlled bases but he said most are for surveillance rather than engaging in a “sort of Trojan Horse-style attack.”
The official said a hobby fixed wing stereophonic body was downed in northern Iraq on Oct. 2.
According to the official, when Kurdish peshmerga forces recovered and opened it for inspection a timed bomb charger that was hidden in the body of the aircraft detonated.
“We sent guidance to the entire forces, including U.S. forces and coalition forces, not to pick those things up, to treat them as some sort of explosive ordinance,” the official said.
Col. Dorrian also updated reporters on the Mosul operation, saying that 12 brigades of troops have encircled Mosul.
He added that Iraq is building 20 camps for refugees to flee Mosul during the fight.
As the Mosul offensive approaches the tension between Turkey and Iraq is building.
Iraq is asking the Turkish government to remove several hundred of its troops from the Bashiqa camp where they are training peshmerga forces and Sunni tribal forces.
Turkey says the troops are going to be there to prevent any potential sectarian conflict in and around Mosul after the city is taken from Daesh.
Turkey also says that Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi invited Turkish forces in 2014.
The coalition, Col. Dorrian said, encourages a diplomatic solution to the rift between the two countries but said there has not been any changes to the plans in the Mosul operation due to the ongoing discussions about Bashiqa.
