More Diggers off to Iraq
Australia will send up to 300 extra troops to Iraq to support efforts to take back parts of the country from Islamic State.
Confirmation of the deployment comes as the RAAF carries out air strikes in support of the first major Iraqi ground offensive to take back a key city.
Tony Abbott said yesterday that the new mission, to be partnered with New Zealand forces, would begin in May and run for two years.
Australia has a 200-strong special forces task group based in Iraq mentoring Iraqi forces but those forces will withdraw as the new training group is rolled out.
Australia also has six F/A-18F Super Hornet strike jets and refuelling and surveillance aircraft supported by 400 personnel operating out of several Gulf states.
_The West Australian _ can reveal those six Super Hornets will be replaced with six older "classic" F/A-18A Hornets for bombing missions.
An extra C-130 Hercules and C-17 Globemaster have also been made available for transport operations.
The Prime Minister said the Diggers would deploy at the request of the Iraqi Government as part of the US-led coalition mission to the country. He promised the soldiers would be training only and would not be stepping "outside the wire" to take part in combat.
"We haven't taken this decision lightly," Mr Abbott said.
"We are naturally reluctant as a peace-loving people to reach out to far-away conflicts but, as we know, this conflict has been reaching out to us for months now."
There are almost 60 countries contributing to the Iraq mission and Australia, with more than 900 personnel in Iraq and the Gulf states, will have one of the biggest contingents behind the US.
Mr Abbott denied the Australian mission constituted "mission creep", saying the soldiers would be simply carrying on the job already being done.
He admitted troops trained by Australian forces in 2005 had "melted away like snow in summer" when confronted by Islamic State. He argued that the last US-led training mission had been "at best, half done", with US troops doing most of the fighting. Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin suggested the Super Hornets were playing a role in an offensive to take back Tikrit.
The Iraqi advance represents the first concerted effort by local forces to dislodge the Sunni insurgent group from a big city.
The Super Hornets have carried out 179 missions and dropped more than 220 bombs.
