can you tell me what we uh
we wonder if you've conducted
some operations with your Iraqi
security force partners um against
these uh enemy groups And and if so uh
could you describe a couple of them for
us ? For example , we're sort of
tracking on on some operations that
were ongoing last month . Yes .
And obviously the sf both the I . P .
And I A . Are always in the lead .
They're wanted operations . And uh the
majority of the time we are providing
the enablers , the air weapons team or
the scout weapons team is our assets
medevac the call the Outer Court on
or the quick reaction force . Those are
the types of things that we're
supplying them with for many of the
Iraqi police . They do the operations
pretty much solely on their own and
same thing for the Iraqi army . Now
obviously some brigades more capable
than others . And we're working with
those to build those capacities and
capabilities of those forces up . But
we have done like I told you before ,
we have captured 14 H . V . I . S .
Many of those have been uh done by the
Iraqis by themselves . And obviously
with the capabilities that we have we
can locate targets , help them locate
those targets . So all our operations
are combined and we've done
company level operations with them
platoon level operations and over the
period of 90 some odd a sense to
We do them out with prices several
times three or 4 times a week . But
also we have other other forces here
helping us out as well to conduct
operations . Can you tell us
more about the Iraqi security forces
in your area ? Uh and indeed , the
Kurdish forces in your area , what is
the current role of the Peshmerga in
the province ? Um And in Kirkuk
specifically , can you characterize
these types of operations , types of
operations that they're conducting um
on the ground For the peshmerga ? We
have the 10th peshmerga brigade
and it is commanded by Brigadier
General Shirko and they are
predominantly in Tron Leyland and
Karen Gear and and and they have a
battalion Chamchamal , which is in the
Korg and that is on the north
northeast and uh
southeast part of the province and
they predominantly don't move anywhere .
There are static defense and they they
do limited patrolling , but mostly
along the road network and in their
headquarters area . And basically just
just trained for any type of threat
that they would see in the future . The
Iraqi Army in which we partner with is
the 12th Iraqi Army Division commanded
by Major General Amir . Uh And I think
when you were here last time , he was a
former brigade commander in the Dallas
area under the old regime , which kind
of excited a few people and based on
his past experiences , a brigade
commander there , But he's got four
brigades in his division , the 49th ,
which is newly forming Adam Davis The
47th , which has been formed for our 46
and 15th and those are predominantly
south of Kirkuk City , which we call
the green line when you're here last .
The prosperity line which really runs
from Davis all the way too late . So we
are partnering our brigade with the
12th Iraqi Army and we liaison with the
10th Peshmerga brigades .
What are the challenges that you face
um in partnering with the 12 to and
uh communicating uh
between between them and the Peshmerga
forces ? Well , we we we
uh we have these security meetings and
we're gonna have one tomorrow . And
what it is , we bring all the security
elements together . Uh the Peshmerga ,
the Iraqi Army , the Iraqi Police , the
intelligence agencies , both ISis Daesh
and uh the enemy is
here lovely . We bring
Political leaders also into this and
we're also gonna bring the governor
into the security meeting . And that's
where we discuss . We're gonna start
this weekly discuss targeting , we're
gonna discuss operations for the next
week . And we're gonna talk about the
approval process , especially when 30
June comes around we'll probably see a
lot more involvement both from the
governor and the security chiefs
within the Kirkuk province . So
the dialogue we have right now is
working very well . When we first got
here , it wasn't working too well in
january . We got both general near from
the 12th Iraqi Army and General Shirko
from the 10th Peshmerga brigade to talk
dialogue . We put A L . N . O . And P .
J . C . C . He has since been moved out .
But we're going to put him back in . We
got the approval for the Ministry of
the Interior . So we see the dialogue
being increased daily and
the time to resolve an issue is
shortened almost within minutes now .
So we see a very positive aspect of the
have them communicate with each other .
So we don't see the problems that we
saw when we first got here . Uh they're
they're very quickly resolved and it's
just by talking and ensuring that the
Iraqi Army tells the Iraqi police what
they're doing now . We still have small
problems at the lower level , but we're
working with our battalion commanders
to talk to their brigade commanders and
their their battalion counterpart ,
battalion commander counterparts to
work these things out . So we think
we've infused ourselves pretty well in
order to enhance that dialogue and
enhance the relationship between the
Arabs and kurds at this time .