Cabinet approves plan to send another 300 Australian troops to Iraq to train forces fighting Islamic State

3 Mar 2015,

(Translation of this article appears in Arabic section)

Australia is poised to expand its military role in Iraq, with Federal Cabinet approving a plan to send another 300 soldiers to help train forces fighting Islamic State militants.

Some 200 Australian special forces are already in Iraq helping train Iraqi government forces.

Now Federal Cabinet has agreed to send up to 300 more troops as part of a joint training mission with New Zealand.

The plan will be put to the Coalition party room today.

The move was flagged last week by New Zealand prime minister John Key, who told his country's parliament that more than 140 New Zealand troops would be sent to Iraq as part of a new deployment alongside Australian personnel.

"This is likely to be a joint training mission with Australia, although it won't be badged an Anzac force," he said.

The ABC understands Mr Key phoned Prime Minister Tony Abbott ahead of his announcement, and the two leaders discussed the issue when Mr Abbott visited Auckland at the weekend.

In Iraq, government forces have launched an offensive against Islamic State north of Baghdad, aiming to drive the militants out of the strategically important town of Tikrit, the birthplace of former dictator Saddam Hussein.

The offensive is the biggest military operation in the province since the Sunni Islamist radicals seized large areas of northern Iraq last June and advanced towards the capital.

Months of US-led air strikes, backed up by the Shiite militias, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Iraqi soldiers, have contained Islamic State and pushed it back from around Baghdad, the Kurdish north, and the eastern province of Diyala.

Australian warplanes have also taken part in the campaign of air strikes against Islamic State.