NINA reports 1 person was killed today in Mosul and five more were left injured.
What's curious is the weapon used. A drone.
US President Barack Obama has insisted that no US drones were being used as weapons as yet in Iraq and those present were in Baghdad.
So what's happened?
Iran's suddenly got drones? Weaponized ones?
Russia's delivered them?
Or Barack's lied to the American people?
Julian E. Barnes (Wall St. Journal) reports on how Barack's rush to arm Nouri suffered a little setback:
U.S. defense officials are tamping down any talk of a quick decision on what to do next in Iraq.
And on Wednesday, Mr. Obama addressed a range of foreign policy challenges, including the Afghanistan elections, negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, the fighting between Israel and Hamas, and Russian provocations in Ukraine, but there was no mention of imminent action in Iraq. In fact, Mr. Obama didn’t mention Iraq at all.
What’s going on?
A fresh assessment of Iraq’s security forces prepared by U.S. military teams working in Iraq was delivered to the Pentagon this week. It wasn’t exactly a sunny outlook, but Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said that while defense leaders felt a sense of urgency, they were not going to rush their work.
Dahr Jamail observes (in a repost at The Nation), " What is left of Iraq, this mess that is no longer a country, should be considered the legacy of decades of US policy there, dating back to the moment when Saddam Hussein was in power and enjoyed Washington’s support. With Maliki, it has simply been a different dictator, enjoying even more such support (until these last weeks), and using similarly barbaric tactics against Iraqis."
In other violence, National Iraqi News Agency reports a battle in Alsger left 3 Iraqi soldiers dead, a Muqdadiyah battle left 6 rebels dead, the military killed 2 suspects in Hit, a central Baghdad bombing left 5 people dead and thirty-seven more injured, an al-Khalid bombing left seven Peshmerga injured, and Baghdad Operations Command announced they killed 19 suspects.
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