Iraq: Wants to buy Rafale to face the Turkish F-16s – “The glass was broken” by the Dohuk attack

The attack on the tourist resort of the mountain village of Parakh, in the Zakho district of Iraq’s Duhok province, which killed at least nine people, appears to be accelerating the plans of the Iraqi Air Force (IQAF) to acquire French Rafale fighter jets.

The Iraqi government blamed the Turkish military for the attack, as Turkey, which has several bases in northern Iraq, regularly attacks militants from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has fought the government in Ankara since 1984, from hideouts. of the mountainous northern part of Iraq.

A senior Iraqi official reportedly told Middle East Eye (MEE) that 155mm artillery shells have been collected suggesting that a Turkish Panther howitzer was used for the strikes.

“The attack was launched by 155mm artillery shells. The resort is 10 kilometers from the Turkish border and the attack was launched by a Turkish artillery force stationed inside Turkish territory,” said a high-ranking Iraqi official cited by MEE.

“No armed faction operating inside Iraq has this type of gun, but it is an essential part of the armament of the Turkish army,” the official added.

Ankara denied the Iraqi government’s claims and blamed the PKK for the attack.

Tension between Turkey and Iraq

While several attacks by Turkish forces targeting the PKK in northern Iraq have resulted in civilian casualties in the past, this is the first time tourists have been killed.

The recent incident sparked outrage among the Iraqi people who took to the streets to protest the attack, heightening tensions between Iraq and Turkey.

The Iraqi government has long called for the withdrawal of Turkish forces from its territory, but for that to happen, Ankara “may require the Iraqi government to expel the PKK,” according to Shivan Fazil of the International Peace Research Institute of Stockholm.

Fazil doubts whether the government in Baghdad has the capacity to meet Ankara’s demands.

While the recent attack was reportedly carried out using 155mm artillery, Turkey is also using its fighter jets and drones to carry out strikes against PKK militants in Iraq.

Israel has also carried out airstrikes against Iranian-backed militias in Iraq. Israeli warplanes are known to use Iraqi airspace for Iranian-allied militias in the eastern Syrian region.

Perhaps – the Eurasian Times points out – it is the Iraqi government’s frustration with these frequent attacks and incursions into Iraqi airspace by foreign fighter jets that may have led the Iraqi Air Force (IQAF) to seek Rafale fighter jets from France.

Iraqi Air Force ready to buy 14 French Rafales

In February, Norman Ricklefs, a geopolitical consultant and former adviser to Iraq’s interior minister and secretary general of Iraq’s defense ministry, told Defense News that the IQAF plans to buy 14 French Rafale fighter jets at a cost of $240 million, paying “ in kind’ (oil) and not in cash.

Paul Iddon, a journalist based in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, says Iraq may be planning to acquire the Rafale to use to intercept enemy aircraft.

The IQAF already has 34 F-16s, which the Turkish and Israeli Air Forces also have, but the Iraqi F-16s, unlike their Turkish and Israeli counterparts, are armed only with short-range air-to-air missiles AIM-7 Sparrow and AIM-9 Sidewinder rather than the long-range AIM-120 AMRAAM.

Considering that IQAF operations are focused on targeting Islamic State (ISIS) militants across Iraq, there is little need for long-range air-to-air missiles. But now it seems that the facts are changing, as the need to intercept Israeli and – especially – Turkish aircraft emerges as a priority.

According to Iddon, France would likely be ready to sell the Rafales, given that it had sold Iraq a large fleet of Mirage F1s in the 1970s and 1980s, and in 2011 had offered to sell 18 more after all were destroyed. earlier Mirage fighter jets during the US invasion of Iraq to overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein.

These 14 Rafales could be armed with the now famous Meteor air-to-air missiles (BVRAAM), which are similar to the US-made AIM-120 missile.

Iddon notes, however, that the US and Israel could oppose Iraq’s acquisition of the Meteor missile, similar to the sale of Rafales to Egypt in 2010 when both countries pressured France to downgrade the air-to-air missile for Cairo to the 80 km MICA missile instead of the 100 km Meteor missile.

Iddon notes, however, that the U.S. and Israel could oppose Iraq’s acquisition of the Meteor missile, as they did with the Rafale sale to Egypt in 2010, when both countries pressured France to replace the Meteor with the range of 100 km with the MICAs, which have a maximum range of 80 km.

See Meteor “in action”:

Turkey may also oppose such a sale, as Rafales armed with BVR missiles could allow the IQAF to intercept Turkish F-16s and UAVs that frequently carry out strikes against PKK militants.

In fact, Ankara has a good reason to oppose such an agreement as in 1983, an Iraqi Mirage F1 had shot down a Turkish F-100F Super Saber using a Super 530F-1 missile.

Source: eurasiantimes