Drones might not be the “whole answer,” Washington’s top diplomat told Yahoo News, “but they may well be one of the options that are important to be able to stem the tide and stop the movement of people who are moving around in open convoys and trucks and terrorising people”.
While the US has ruled out cooperating militarily with Tehran, the two nations which have been bitter foes for more than 30 years held “brief discussions” on the crisis in Vienna.
It is yet to be determined “if we want to keep talking to Iran about Iraq”, State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf told CNN, acknowledging that Tehran and Washington had a shared interest in ensuring militants do not get “a foothold any more in Iraq”.
– ‘Not a mature force ‘-
Doubts are growing that the Iraqi security forces can hold back the militant tide, despite military commanders trumpeting a counter offensive.
Soldiers and police retreated en masse as the insurgents swept into Iraq’s second city of Mosul a week ago, leaving vehicles and even uniforms in their wake.
Their retreat, despite their vast numerical advantage, is the result of what experts say are myriad problems, ranging from lacklustre training and low morale, to corruption and an atmosphere of simmering sectarianism.
“This army is not a mature force,” Anthony Cordesman of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies said.
John Drake, a London based security analyst at AKE Group, said troops were inexperienced and demoralised by repeated “asymmetric attacks.”
“This has resulted in a lot of them getting killed, while morale has been slowly eroded. However, it hasn’t given them a lot of actual fighting experience.”
The embattled security forces are being joined by a flood of volunteers after a call to arms from top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, but most of them are untrained.
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