The United States is supplying Iraq with arms and surveillance technology to combat al-Qaeda-backed insurgents amid worsening violence, the New York Times reported Thursday, two years after the last American combat troops left the country.
Citing unnamed Obama administration officials, the Times reports that the U.S. is providing lethal aid, including 75 Hellfire missiles, and 10 ScanEagle reconnaissance drones. The U.S. intelligence community is also providing information on the location of al-Qaeda networks and militant camps, according to the Times.
More than 8,000 Iraqis have been killed this year, according to the United Nations, in the worst violence since 2008, as al-Qaeda’s regional affiliate expands in western Iraq and war-torn Syria across the border.
[NYT]
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