Hundreds of British troops to be sent to Iraq next month, says Defence Secretary

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/hundreds-of-british-troops-to-be-sent-to-iraq-next-month-says-defence-secretary-9922857.html

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Hundreds of British troops are to be sent to Iraq next month to help win the fight against Isis militants, the Defence Secretary has said.

Michael Fallon told the Daily Telegraph newspaper that UK soldiers would be training Iraqi and Kurdish forces to help them better combat Isis, which is also known as Islamic State.

Mr Fallon also revealed that a small “force protection” group of soldiers, armed and prepared for battle, would also be deployed to protect the military training teams.

British troops withdrew from Iraq three years ago and the deployment would represent the first significant force sent to the country since then.

The National Security Council is expected to confirm the mission in a meeting on Tuesday, according defence sources close to Sky News.

The mission is to be based near Baghdad, the capital, and Irbil in the Kurdish-controlled north of the country.

"Our role now, apart from the air strikes, is increasingly going to be on training,” Mr Fallon told the newspaper.

“Particularly, a key skill we are going to be helping with is counter-IED, particularly vehicle explosive devices which the Iraqi army hasn’t come across for some time, they don’t know how to handle, they haven’t got the kit or the bomb disposal people to deal with it,”

"So the training we are going to be offering in January will be in infantry skills and some of the basics but particularly on how you deal with IEDs, given all the lessons we have learnt from Afghanistan.

“We are now looking to help them with that equipment and to run training with them in the four main training centres that the Americans are establishing."

British pilots are already launching airstrikes against Isis fighters using RAF Tornado jets to help Kurdish militants in the north of the country.

Last week concerns about morale amongst the British personnel at Britain’s Cyprus airbase were brought to light by the BBC.

Though the conflict spans the Levant – both Iraq and Syria – British forces are currently only fighting in Iraq because MPs blocked military action in Syria in a vote last year.