Foreign Policy reports that “The Iraqi government is actively seeking armed drones from the U.S. to combat al Qaeda in its increasingly violent Anbar province, and in a significant reversal, would welcome American military drone operators back into the country to target those militants on its behalf, according to people with knowledge of the matter.”  

“Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite government has for the last several months struggled to stem the violence in Iraq’s western reaches, particularly in the Sunni-dominated Anbar province, site of some of the heaviest and bloodiest fighting of the decade-long Iraq War. Some of the instability in western Iraq is attributed to fighters arriving from Iraq’s war-torn neighbor, Syria.”