Australia to send 300 additional troops to train Iraqi army

PanARMENIAN.Net - Australia will send around 300 additional troops to Iraq to help train local security forces fighting Islamic State militants, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Tuesday, March 3, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Australian troops would join around 143 New Zealand personnel in the coming weeks in a joint training team at Taji, northwest of Baghdad, in a deployment expected to last around two years, Abbott said.

“It is a mission which is necessary because, obviously in the face of the initial death cult onslaught, the Iraqi regular army melted like snow in summer. That’s been a disaster for the people of Iraq, millions of whom now live in a new dark age,” Abbott told reporters in Canberra.

Australia, a close U.S. ally and original member of the U.S.-led coalition that in 2003 ousted the former government of Saddam Hussein, already has around 200 special forces trainers in the country, as well as combat aircraft taking part in airstrikes against Islamic State positions from the Al Minhad Air Base near Dubai.

Abbott said around 100 Australian citizens were thought to be fighting for Islamist militants in Syria and Iraq, backed and supported by around 130 others at home. The country has been one of the biggest sources of recruits to Islamic State, based on per capita ranking among Western nations, prompting the government to strengthen security laws and crack down on travel by militant suspects.

“The declaration of a caliphate has obviously excited people all around the world who are susceptible to this particular ideology,” Abbott said.

“That’s why it’s very important not just for the people of Iraq, but for the people of the wider world, that the Iraqis regain control over their own country and demonstrate that this caliphate is not something which is going to have any lengthy existence.”