Did airdropped weapons fall into hands of ISIS?
Militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) may have obtained at least one bundle of weapons airdropped by U.S. forces and meant for Kurdish fighters.
{mosads}A video posted Tuesday on YouTube shows a purported ISIS militant going through an array of boxes, some emblazoned with Arabic writing. At least two of the boxes are filled with grenades. There are no signs in the video, however, that the weapons were made in the U.S.
The video was also posted on the Twitter account of “a3maq news,” which acts as an unofficial media arm of ISIS, according to the Daily Beast.
On Sunday, the U.S. announced it had dropped 27 bundles of small arms, ammunition and medical supplies intended for the Kurdish militia fighting ISIS in the Syrian border town of Kobani near Turkey for weeks.
The airdrops were from three Air Force C-130 cargo planes, but Defense officials said the supplies were from Kurdish peshmerga forces in Erbil, Iraq, and not U.S. supplies.
Defense officials said Monday that the U.S. had originally dropped 28 bundles, but had to destroy one “stray resupply bundle” to prevent the supplies falling into enemy hands. Senior administration officials said on a background call that they were confident that the 27 other bundle drops were successful.
Other pictures that surfaced online Monday showed that some of the supply bundles that successfully reached Kurdish militia forces included Meals, Ready-to-Eat that originated in Cincinnati.
Although the photo and the video have not been verified by U.S. officials, it is possible the supplies from the Kurdish peshmerga forces in Iraq were from the Iraqi or U.S. government originally.
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