One of the 28 bundles of weapons and medical supplies airdropped by
U.S. forces to Kurdish fighters in Syria most likely fell into enemy
hands, a Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday, October 22, but a majority
reached their intended recipients.
"We still know that the vast majority of resupply bundles that
we dropped went to friendly forces and were received by friendly forces,"
Army Col. Steve Warren told reporters. "There is always going to
be some margin of error in these types of operations. We routinely overload
these aircraft because we know that some bundles may go astray."
The pallet was dropped
by US C-130 aircraft on sunday night Oct. 19 to resupply Kurdish fighters
battling Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorists in the border
town of Kobani. U.S.
“One bundle worth of equipment is not enough equipment to give
the enemy any type of advantage at all,” Warren told reporters.
“It’s a relatively small amount of supplies. This is stuff
ISIL already has.”
The weapons, ammunition and medical supplies being dropped to besieged
Kurdish forces defending Kobani are being supplied by Kurds in neighboring
Iraq as part of Operation Inherent Resolve aimed at eliminating ISIL
terrorists who hold significant portions of Northern Iraq and Syria.
A second airdropped bundle with similar contents also went off course,
Warren said, but it was destroyed by fighter aircraft soon after it
hit the ground. It’s possible that wind could have driven the
packages off course, he said.
The US State Department spokesperson Marie Harf said Wednesday, Oct.
22, that Washington thinks the weapons airdrop mission in Syria was
necessary to protect the besieged city of Kobani and thus successful,
even though part of US’ arms ended up in the hands of Islamic
State (IS) militants.
"All military missions incur some risk. But the alternative of
doing nothing, of not making sure the fighters pushing back ISIL [IS]
on the ground in and around Kobani have the weapons and ammunition they
need, and the medical supplies they need, we don’t think is a
viable option,” Harf said at the State Department press briefing.
Earlier the same day, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized
US’ actions, stressing that now it was clear, who Washington’s
support was for.
In response, Marie Harf said the people, fighting IS on the ground,
should have the supplies they need.
“They are responding to repeated ISIL attacks upon their city
and, you know we’ll let the Turkish government speak for itself,
but allowing ISIL to seize more territory along the border with Turkey
could endanger more Syrian communities and threaten our shared interest
with Turkey in defeating ISIL and strengthening the moderate opposition,”
Harf added.
A Youtube video, uploaded on Tuesday, Oct. 21, showed IS fighters, examining
a bundle the group claimed was dropped by US aircraft. The Pentagon
conceded the video could be valid but needed more time to verify.
Islamic
State lays hands on at least a bundle airdropped by the U.S. near Kobani