Iraqi PM blames crisis on U.S. delay in jet delivery
ISIL conflict led to requests for aid
BAGHDAD — Iraq has bought used fighter jets from Russia and Belarus to battle Islamist militants after long delays in the delivery of F-16 planes from the U.S. left troops without air support, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said.
Al-Maliki, in an interview with BBC Arabic, blamed the U.S. for delaying the delivery of 36 aircraft.
“We shouldn’t have just bought U.S. jets, we should have bought British, French and Russian jets to provide air support,” he said, according to excerpts emailed by the BBC.
The U.S is delivering the first F-16 aircraft “as quickly as possible” and has said all along that they’ll be handed over in the fall, army Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters in Washington on Wednesday.
The jet purchase follows requests by al-Maliki for U.S military assistance to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the Sunni militant group that has seized Mosul, the largest city in the north, and other towns.
While U.S President Barack Obama has agreed to send 300 military advisers to help the Iraqi army, he has put the onus on Iraqi leaders to seek a political solution to the crisis.
ISIL’s rapid military advance has raised the spectre of civil war in OPEC’s secondlargest oil producer.
Some Shiite and Sunni leaders have called on al-Maliki, a Shiite, to step aside to allow the formation of a national unity government that can halt ISIL’s advance.