{"id":126522,"date":"2014-06-27T14:06:17","date_gmt":"2014-06-27T14:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=126522"},"modified":"2014-06-27T14:06:17","modified_gmt":"2014-06-27T14:06:17","slug":"armed-us-drones-flying-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/war-terrorism\/armed-us-drones-flying-iraq\/","title":{"rendered":"Armed US Drones Flying Over Iraq"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"subtitle\" style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Pentagon announced Thursday drones equipped with Hellfire missiles will accompany another troop deployment<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #121212;\">U.S. armed drones are now flying over Iraq, a Pentagon official announced Thursday,<a style=\"color: #005588;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/06\/27\/world\/middleeast\/iraqi-parliament-to-meet-to-form-new-government.html?_r=0\">according to numerous media reports.<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #121212;\">Equipped with Hellfire missiles, the predator drones are being deployed from a base in Kuwait to accompany unarmed surveillance flights that include drones as well as manned aircraft. The armed drones will also supplement U.S. military &#8220;advisers&#8221; on the ground, the official stated.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #121212;\">Meanwhile, the United States has opened a &#8220;joint operations center&#8221; in Baghdad, boosting the total number of U.S. service members to 500, Pentagon officials revealed in a\u00a0<a style=\"color: #005588;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.defense.gov\/news\/newsarticle.aspx?id=122556\">statement<\/a>released Thursday.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #121212;\">And according to a\u00a0<em>New York Times<\/em>\u00a0<a style=\"color: #005588;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/06\/26\/world\/middleeast\/isis-iraq.html\">article<\/a>\u00a0published Wednesday, two Iraqi advisers to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said that the U.S. is planning to send more than 1,000 U.S. private security guards to Iraq to protect U.S. troops. This amounts to &#8220;far more Americans than previously acknowledged,&#8221; the\u00a0<em>Times<\/em>\u00a0notes.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #121212;\">The Pentagon&#8217;s announcement of drone flights come amid\u00a0<a style=\"color: #005588;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/06\/26\/world\/middleeast\/iran-iraq.html\">reports<\/a>\u00a0that Iran is also sending surveillance drones to Iraq.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #121212;\">Middle East scholar Juan Cole\u00a0<a style=\"color: #005588;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.juancole.com\/2014\/06\/obama-prepares-drone.html\">warned earlier this month<\/a>\u00a0that the Obama administration&#8217;s deployment of special forces military &#8220;advisers&#8221; to Iraq for intelligence-gathering and other purposes suggest that &#8220;Obama is likely paving the way to US drone strikes on ISIS in Iraq.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #121212;\" align=\"center\">_____________________<\/p>\n<div class=\"copyright-info\" style=\"color: #121212;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/headline\/2014\/06\/27\" target=\"_blank\">This work<\/a> is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pentagon announced Thursday drones equipped with Hellfire missiles will accompany another troop deployment U.S. armed drones are now flying over Iraq, a Pentagon official announced Thursday,according to numerous media reports. Equipped with Hellfire missiles, the predator drones are being deployed from a base in Kuwait to accompany unarmed surveillance flights that include drones as well [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,16],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-126522","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news","7":"category-war-terrorism"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126522\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}