German media, such as NDR, WDR, Tagesthemen and Deutsche Welle, repeatedly reported that the Kurdish Peshmerga were unable to control the whereabouts of German weapons and would sell them at the bazaar in Kurdistan. All other media copied there. The German journalists were unable to provide any evidence for their claims. They didn't respond to accusations because they couldn't believe "those down there" anyway. I have been researching on and off for five years now and present the facts here.
When the terrorist militia “Islamic State” attacked the Iraqi city of Mosul from June 4th to 10th, 2014, took control of it and robbed the banks, the Kurds in Iraq were just an hour's drive east of this city - without international help. The Kurds in the Autonomous Region of Kurdistan (Iraq) were in exactly the same situation as the Kurds in Syria. In Syria, the Kurdish People's Liberation Unit YPG had been fighting the Islamic State for months without outside help. IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi then proclaimed the caliphate in Mosul on June 29, 2014. I was in January 2020 in its former rooms and those of his security service.
Weapons to defend against the advancing Islamic State
According to the Iraqi constitution, the Kurdistan Autonomous Region in northern Iraq has its own government and security forces. The border with the central government in Baghdad is theoretically clearly regulated, but flexible in practice. There are predominantly Kurdish-inhabited areas under central Iraqi control, which are called "disputed areas", disputed areas. IS was in these disputed areas, but not yet in Kurdistan Iraq.
Since formally all weapons purchases by the Kurds must go through the central government in Baghdad, but Baghdad does not agree to the purchase, the Kurds are de facto cut off from the legal international arms market. To this day, people do not want to take part in illegal activities and live with the problem. There are few allies. Initially, the Turkish army delivered weapons, ammunition and trainers quickly and easily. Among the weapons delivered were German weapons that the Turkish army has been buying for decades. The Turkish army also has weapons from foreign armies captured from the PKK in Turkey and YPG in Syria, which in turn captured them from other armies. When such a weapon is found, it is almost impossible to determine the exact route and its (il)legality.
2014 – Fighting without usable weapons
I was already there in June 2014 and, while researching the war that was just beginning, I reached the last suburb of Mosul that had not yet been occupied. It quickly became clear that the lack of weapons had dramatic consequences. The western side of the Mosul Dam, which lies north of the city, had already been taken by IS, the eastern side was held by the Peshmerga, the army of the Autonomous Region of Kurdistan and partly, at the time, by Iraqi forces. The strategically and economically important dam lies at the end of a huge reservoir.
The Peshmerga had hardly any bulletproof vests and almost no helmets at all and had a hodgepodge of often old AK-47 Kalashnikov assault rifles, Soviet Dragunov sniper rifles or M4 and M16 assault rifles that the Americans had left behind in various wars. All proven and reliable weapons. But none that brought anything to this dam. When the Peshmerga tried to take the dam, IS fired from the other side with old, large-caliber Russian DShK machine guns. These can easily penetrate armored vehicles. So you only needed two fighters and a heavy machine gun behind a thick steel plate to hold the dam, but you would have needed a rocket launcher or an air strike on the other side to take out that tiny "emplacement".
The problem of the IS “Mad Max Cars” was similar. This refers to improvised, armored, moving bombs: a car with armor plates on the outside and explosives on the inside. A suicide bomber simply drove into a Peshmerga position and then detonated the explosive device. Without an anti-tank weapon, it was impossible to stop such a moving suicide bomb. A very trivial, but at this moment insoluble problem. And there were hundreds more like this.
In June 2014 I met the commander of an anti-terror unit who explained the problem to me in detail. When I returned in January 2015, I visited his grave. A Mad Max car drove through the desert towards his base. He immediately jumped into a pickup truck, drove towards the car, rammed it and caused it to explode. Through his efforts, he saved dozens of lives - and left behind his wife and three small children.
The first military support
After the Turkish weapons came those of the Americans, who also brought trainers and troops into the country, but expected political rewards in return. Israel already had its Peshmerga army trainers in the country and increased its involvement. China initially offered aid in exchange for natural resources, but then withdrew its offer. The talks with the German federal government dragged on, but were quick by German standards. The federal government delivered a number of weapons in 2014. Above all, the G36 assault rifle and the MILAN anti-tank weapon (“rocket launcher”) with night vision targeting optics. With exactly this rocket launcher you could now fight Mad Max cars and similar attacks and no longer had to give your life for that of your comrades. With this knowledge, it is hardly surprising that newborn babies in Kurdistan were called “Milan”, “Angela” or “Ursula”. The Chancellor and the then Defense Minister were seen as heroes here. From the perspective of the Kurds, strong women who ruled a country and an army in Europe and who understood how important the fight against the terrorist Islamic State is. I spoke to both of them at the time; both of them honestly cared about preventing more orphans. Because they arise from a lack of certain weapons at certain moments in combination with an opponent who has set out to do nothing less than destroy all those who think differently.
At that time there was also a discussion about whether the G36 would work reliably in the desert or not. I had seen the German weapons on site and spoken to the Peshmerga who used them. I also tested identical weapons myself in the desert to get an idea of the situation. They worked well if you used the weapons with the right ammunition and in the right way. I was surprised at how many of my journalistic colleagues in Germany reported the jamming story without fact-checking it. On the other hand, I was attacked for doing exactly this. You have to be “gun crazy” or a “gun nut” to do this. I see it differently: I like checking facts. No more and no less. I would otherwise never pick up a G36, it doesn't impress me much from a technical point of view.
“Peshmerga sell German weapons in the bazaar”
After the German weapons had been delivered, distributed and the users had been trained, I wanted to travel to Kurdistan again to see the whole thing in practice. While I was there, an article was published in Germany saying that the Peshmerga would sell the weapons that had just been delivered by the Bundeswehr right back at the bazaar. In the press release it says “(…) according to research, Peshmerga fighters are selling their service weapons because they have not received any pay for months due to the tense economic situation in the country. (…) G3 assault rifles, manufactured in 1986, are offered on the markets at a price of 1450 to 1800 US dollars. (…) an end-use control does not seem to be possible for the federal government.”
The German Wave reported on January 21, 2016: “Kirkuk Province Governor Najmeddin Karim confirmed that the Kurdish government is unable to regularly pay civil servants, including Peshmerga fighters, due to a lack of financial resources.”
A few lines that hit Germany like a bomb. All the newspapers and news programs jumped on it. Really everyone reported it exactly that way. So can it be assumed that all of these media outlets had two independent sources for this story and perhaps did their own fact-checking, as professional ethics require?
It would take me five years, more than a hundred conversations, studying thousands of pages of documents and several trips to the region to get to grips with the whole story. To get one thing out of the way: I cannot confirm it according to normal journalistic standards.
I was in Kurdistan at exactly that time and had doubts about the story because it seemed fundamentally illogical to me. The Peshmerga found themselves relatively alone against a ruthless and overwhelming enemy. After tough negotiations, they received a few weapons from the federal government. Why should you sell these immediately – and to whom? The consequences are clear to everyone here in Kurdistan: the illegal sale of these weapons would have resulted in an immediate stop to further deliveries. At that time in Kurdistan, in all the cafés, at home and in many shops, there was constant news from the front, from the rest of the world, just about everything. Ordinary people on the street were often surprisingly well informed about details of Germany's weapons and refugee policy. And they wanted to preserve and protect their land. In 2014, amusement parks, shopping malls and cafés were open normally everywhere. People went to work, earned money, went to clubs to party. There were and are car dealers from Jaguar to Kia. It may be that many Germans have a bizarre image of Kurdistan in their minds, but the country is also provided with fast mobile internet, even in outdoor areas. The people of Kurdistan live like the people of Europe. Many were in Germany or other European countries. People don't live behind the moon in Kurdistan.
First, I contacted some German journalists from major newspapers and public media and asked them about their sources and explained that I had a different impression on the ground and would like to get to the bottom of the matter of the weapons that were allegedly sold. All feedback was sobering. Most of the articles were based on “research by colleagues” – meaning reading and summarizing other people’s articles. At school this was called copying. There was no independent research or even fact checking. Neither does a second source. It was often said that there were two sources, since two reporters worked together to write the original and often copied article. So there are two sources. A very interesting interpretation of these rules. It's also exciting that the US colleagues didn't want to touch the story with pliers. I asked some major media outlets. They all said it was an unverifiable single source. “No better than a tweet without further links,” said a CNN colleague.
So I contacted the Kurdish authorities and also the governor quoted, whose first name is Najmaldin and not Najmeddin. He said he was unaware of any conversation with these journalists. He then gave even immediately put out a press release saying so: “The governor 'categorically' rejects the DW report as false.” A total journalistic loss. The person who quoted Deutsche Welle made it known in black and white that the German public broadcaster was lying.
He continued: “The investigation was carried out by two German broadcasters, NDR and WDR, who visited Kurdish arms markets that had German rifles on display. The report does not cite any Peshmerga or arms dealers who claim they sold newly delivered German weapons.”
I confronted Deutsche Welle about this and the fact that they misspelled his name. The governor is a surgeon by profession. Dr. Najmaldin Karim was in charge of the emergency room when American President Ronald Reagan was admitted after his assassination attempt. He is a US citizen. Therefore, you don't have to transcribe your name, just copy it from your passport. There is no interpretation. Deutsche Welle’s response was succinct: “Articles on this issue appeared similar in other media: Welt, Focus, N-TV, FAZ. In all of these articles, one of the original speakers is a Najmeddin Karim - in exactly this spelling. If Mr. Najmaldin/Najmeddin no longer wants to be quoted like this after such a long time, he is welcome to contact us.” To date, the DW article has not been corrected. Dr. Najmaldin Karim will no longer be in touch. He has since died.
In order to correctly resolve this story in terms of content and to explain that the governor had explained the facts correctly at the time, one must know that the Peshmerga's salary is paid, or should be paid, by the Iraqi central government in Baghdad. But if you, as a journalist, don't know the context and don't ask questions, you'll come to a distorting, false conclusion. It seems as if the Kurdish government had not paid the Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers any salaries and therefore they had to monetize the German weapons.
A second accusation in the article is that it is not possible to check the whereabouts of the weapons. When I was there, I immediately asked the Kurdish regional government if I could check it out. It took a few hours before I was told where in Erbil I could see the complete list of weapons and the assignment to the units. Only recordings or reproduction of the list were not permitted because there were only a few MILANs and they did not want to give IS any information about where the rocket launchers were in use.
Under fire
Since paper is patient, I wanted to see these systems in practice. I was allowed to do that too. Since we had to be very close to the area conquered by IS, I was provided with a protected convoy that took me as quickly as possible to the locations I had chosen. The contested area around the town of Shingal was also included.
There we saw a battle in which a silo building was shot at by the Islamic State, although IS was supposed to have been defeated here. Silos can cause a tremendous explosion. Shortly afterwards we ourselves were shot at on a serpentine road. My convoy couldn't get out of the way. There was no going back and no going back. In this situation, a Peshmerga position further up the mountain with a rocket launcher saved us. It turned out to be a MILAN system. I could see the missile's steering wire unwinding. So that was how I saw the use of the surface-to-surface anti-tank guided missile, albeit differently than I had imagined. Of course, it wasn't just me who took up this offer, but also other journalists like Claas Weinmann and Tobias Huch at other times. Everyone was able to see the systems in practice. German security forces also repeatedly checked individual Peshmerga positions. People in the federal government don't like to talk about it, but they like reading their reports. By chance I came across one of these “inspectors” vehicles when I was in a frontline section in 2015.
Later, some newspapers also reported that the MILAN system had been “given away” by the Kurdish Peshmerga to the YPG in Syria. There were two “evidence images”. One showed a MILAN system in Kobane, Syria, the other a MILAN system at an unknown location, used by YPG forces. The first photo was very easy to explain: The Peshmerga received permission from the Turkish government to travel from Kurdistan-Iraq through Turkey to Syria to help the YPG defeat the Islamic State. A historically unique moment that does not fit into any of the clichés of Turkish-Kurdish relations. This operation was coordinated and approved by everyone involved.
The other photo is just as simple, although explained differently: The MILAN system at the YPG has what looks like a dark, large light bulb at the top. This is the cooling cartridge for the night vision target optics. It is not reusable, but is almost silent. There is a second variant with a compressor about the size and square of a milk carton. This is reusable and makes noise. During development there was no consensus as to which solution was better, and so there were two parallel systems. The disposable cartridge is used in the French system, which France also sold to the Syrian army from which it captured the YPG. The reusable compressor is used in the German version, which was delivered to the Peshmerga. This “expertise” can be found on the Wikipedia page for the MILAN system.
The core of the story, however, is the sale of Bundeswehr weapons from the current delivery by Peshmerga to third parties. This is also a criminal offense in Kurdistan Iraq. So in 2016 I asked the authorities about the status of things. The police in the regional capital Erbil immediately informed me that the investigation was being conducted by Asayhes. This is a mixture of investigative agency and intelligence service. Asayhe's employees told me quite openly about the status of the investigation and asked whether I had the federal government's documents on it. Ultimately, there were own investigations and a meeting in the Defense Committee, at which representatives of the Kurdish regional government were also said to have been present. The result there, according to security agency circles, was: “We found nothing that indicates that the Peshmerga were selling the weapons.”
The loss of four weapons is known: three G36 assault rifles and a P1 pistol. The first question is: Is the story even relevant? Four weapons in an area that has been crisscrossed by one war after another for centuries? It has no relevance to a war. Is it unique? Neither. The USA alone is missing in Afghanistan and Iraq 700.000 weapons – in words: seven hundred thousand. This means that 1% of the population in these countries could have a US gun.
The Bundeswehr also regularly has weapons verloren, some were stolen and also sold. There are criminals everywhere.
The whereabouts of all four weapons that were lost are known: The three G36s were destroyed in an attack on a Peshmerga post in Kirkuk. Seven Peshmerga died. The weapon parts were later recovered and documented, and the photos were handed over to the German authorities. A P1 pistol was correctly reported lost in action by a Peshmerga. It actually appeared at a market, but was never sold and instead confiscated. The licensed firearms dealer was able to correctly document the purchase of the weapon. He didn't buy it from a Kurdish soldier, but from a Syrian Arab who had to flee from IS and leave his homeland. He, in turn, stated that he had found the weapon - in the region where it had been reported lost in action some time before. There was fighting there at the time of the loss. It was found when the area was liberated from IS.
A G3 assault rifle appears in some reports, which is said to have been offered by a Peshmerga. Here too, the Kurdish authorities are aware of the seller and the weapon. The seller was never a Peshmerga, he is also a licensed arms dealer, and he was also able to provide correct proof of the purchase. The weapon does not come from a delivery from the Bundeswehr, but from a Bundeswehr delivery to another country. However, the exact path of the weapon could not be traced from there. But there are many G3s in the world one way or another. The Turkish army repeatedly received weapons from the Bundeswehr and ex-NVA stocks. Both Turkey and Iran produce the G3 under license.
The police in Erbil, as well as Asayesh and the Peshmerga Ministry explained to me that, apart from my request, they have not yet received any further requests from Germany. So no one else has been interested in a fact check so far.
Again I asked colleagues why this fact check had not been carried out. The response was often shockingly racist: “HAHAHA! You can't believe a word they say anyway!” There are certainly government agencies that you can't trust much. For example, if you asked about the opposition in the GDR or if you asked about human rights in North Korea. But what is the basis for the distrust of the Kurdish-Iraqi authorities? Upon request: None. It's more like a feeling that you just can't trust “them” down there. “The Iraqis could never really be trusted,” a Middle East expert at a major magazine told me. Simply lumping “Irakis” and Kurds together speaks volumes. The Iraqi army gassed Kurds and buried them alive as recently as the 1980s. The last time the armies faced each other on the domestic border was in 2017. It is difficult to see these parties as equal, especially as department heads.
International cooperation, like all relationships between people, is based primarily on trust. When the child murderer Ali B. wanted to flee from Germany to Kurdistan-Iraq in 2018, all checkpoints, i.e. domestic military checkpoints, on the important roads were immediately informed. It took less than 48 Hours until the Kurdish authorities caught him and put him on a Lufthansa plane to Frankfurt. It sounds more like they are very reliable partners.
So what remains of the headline? Instead of “Peshmerga sold the Bundeswehr’s weapons” it should say “A soldier’s weapon that was lost in action was confiscated in a market by a dealer who had correctly purchased it according to the applicable standards.” But that doesn't sound so sensational.
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