Australia to dispatch more forces to train Iraqi soldiers

Australia will dispatch an additional 300 troops to Iraq to allegedly help train local security forces in their fight against Takfiri ISIL terrorists, Prime Minister Tony Abbott says.

“We don’t expect to be doing the Iraqis’ fighting for them,” Abbott said on Tuesday, adding, “This is a training mission, not a combat mission.”

The deployment of the soldiers to the Taji military base, some 22 kilometers (12 miles) north of the Iraqi capital city of Baghdad, is part of a joint Australia-New Zealand training mission, the Australian premier said.

The Australian forces are scheduled to arrive in Iraq in May as part of a two-year mission, which will be reviewed after a year, Abbott added.

Australia already has about 170 soldiers in Iraq advising Iraqi troops. Another 400 air force personnel, stationed in al-Minhad Air Base in the United Arab Emirates, are backing Australian airstrikes against the ISIL terror group in Iraq.

A recent surge in ISIL-linked terrorist activities has been a significant motivation for the government decision to dispatch the troops, Abbott further said.

Last month, Australia charged two men with plotting a terror attack in Sydney in cooperation with the ISIL terrorists.

The charges came after the suspects, Omar al-Kutobi, 24, and Mohammad Kiad, 25, were detained on February 10 during a police raid on a house in west Sydney after a tip-off.

In December last year, a gunman believed to represent the ISIL took 18 people hostage in a 16-hour siege at a Sydney café. Two hostages and the gunman died when police stormed the café to free the hostages.

“The death cult has been reaching out to our country with about 100 Australians fighting with Daesh (ISIL) and other terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq and about another 150 here at home supporting these extremists,” Abbott said, adding, “So this commitment is a matter of domestic as well as international security.”

New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Key also said last month that the country would send some 140 troops to train Iraqi security forces.

This is while a number of Western countries along with their Middle Eastern allies, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, initially supported the Takfiri terrorists in 2012 to topple the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

After ISIL swept through parts of Iraq in June 2014, turned against the West’s interests and executed a number of Western hostages, the US and its allies interfered and started targeting the terrorist group’s strongholds.

The US-led anti-ISIL coalition has been carrying out airstrikes on what it says are ISIL targets since early August 2014 in Iraq. Alleged ISIL positions have also been targeted in Syria since late September.

The ISIL extremists are engaged in crimes against humanity in the areas under their control. They have terrorized and killed people of all communities, including Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, and Christians.

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