The M1 Abrams: The Army Tank That Could Not Be Stopped

[AdamG]

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – Nine Abrams tanks the United States had provided to Iraqi forces for the battle against the Islamic State (IS) are now in the hands of the Iranian-backed Hashd al-Shaabi militias, a US military audit confirmed.
A quarterly inspector general report for the US mission in Iraq and Syria, released on Feb. 2, confirms that M1 Abrams battle tanks and other lethal equipment provided to the Iraqi government by Washington have ended up with the Hashd al-Shaabi, also known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF).

http://www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/d...7-3f3021db71e2

[AdamG]

Pro-Iranian militias in Iraq got their hands on at least nine high-tech, U.S.-made M-1 tanks as early as 2015, the U.S. government acknowledged earlier this month. Along with the belated admission, the Pentagon and the U.S. State Department say they are trying to take back the tanks. But to a great extent, the damage is already done. The militias have already deployed them against some of America’s longtime Kurdish allies.

When the so-called Islamic State swept through northwest Iraq in 2014, Iraqi M-1s were in the thick of the fighting. Militants quickly destroyed five of them, damaged dozens more, and captured several intact M-1s. For a few months at least, ISIS possessed operational M-1s. Then pro-Iran Shia militias—collectively known as “Popular Mobilization Forces” or PMF—recaptured some the tanks, the coalition spokesperson said.
In January 2015, a video appeared online that showed an M-1 flying the flag of the Hezbollah Brigades, a U.S.-designated terror group that’s part of the PMF and fights alongside the Iraqi army. A separate video that appeared in February 2016 showed an M-1 sporting the flag of Kata’ib Sayyid Al Shuhada, another PMF militia.
Recaptured vehicles that the PMF seized from ISIS account for only “some” of the at least nine M-1s that have appeared in the militias’ arsenal, according to the coalition spokesperson. The Iraqi army appears to have supplied the balance of the tanks directly to the PMF, in violation of Iraq’s original contract for the M-1s.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...ack/ar-BBJmgTV

And yet Pax Americana still hasn't supplied their Kurd allies with a Battalion's worth.