Inexperienced Iraqi pilots drop supplies to ISIS militants
Iraqi military pilots mistakenly gave food, water and ammunition to enemy ISIS militants instead of their own soldiers, American news channel NBC reported Wednesday, citing a senior security official and a brigadier.
The supplies were supposed to help besieged Iraqi army troops, who had been fighting Islamist extremists in Saglawyah and the village of Al-Sijar for more than a week.
“Some pilots, instead of dropping these supplies over the area of the Iraqi army, dropped them in an area that ISIS fighters control,” said Hakim Al-Zamili, a lawmaker and member of the Security and Defense committee.
ISIS militants / Courtesy of Daily Mail
Blaming the pilots’ lack of experience and poor planning by Iraqi military commanders, Hakim said the supplies would now help ISIS fighters kill his own soldiers.
A brigadier-general in Iraq’s Defense Ministry confirmed that the blunder happened on Sept. 19, adding that some pilots “do not have enough experience” and were “all young and new.”