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House panel approves peshmerga bill that Baghdad deems 'unwise and unnecessary'

The House Foreign Affairs panel voted to directly arm Kurdish forces.
Kurdish peshmerga take part in a training session during German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen's visit at a camp in Banslawa in Arbil, north of Baghdad, October 27, 2015. German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen said that the government will look into sending more weapons to Peshmerga fighting Islamic State in Iraq. Von der Leyen has been in Iraq since late, she also paid a visit to a camp in Banslawa where German soldiers are currently training around 30 young Kurdish fighters. REUTERS/Azad lash

A key House panel voted unanimously Dec. 9 to bypass Baghdad and directly arm Kurdish peshmerga forces in their fight against the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS).

The Foreign Affairs Committee bill goes further than previous such efforts by instructing the US president to merely "consult" with Baghdad, effectively cutting Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's government out of the equation. The distinction wasn't lost on the Iraqi Embassy in Washington, which slammed the bill as "unwise and unnecessary" ahead of the vote.

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