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Britain planning to dispatch more troops to Iraq

Thursday, 05 May 2016 8:46 AM [ Last Update: Thursday, 05 May 2016 9:19 AM ]

Britain is considering sending hundreds of troops to Iraq, officials say.

UK Defense Secretary Michael Fallon says his country will send more British troops to Iraq to train Iraqi forces in the fight against Takfiri Daesh terrorists.

Fallon made the announcement ahead of a meeting of defense ministers and representatives from 12 countries from the so-called anti-Daesh coalition in the German city of Stuttgart on Wednesday.

“Make no mistake! Iraqi forces have Daesh on the back foot and are retaking territory, hitting its finances and striking its leadership. Now is the time to build on recent success and we are looking hard at what more we can offer as Iraqi combat operations intensify,” Fallon said.

The exact number of the British forces has not been declared, but sources say the “trainers and engineers” could number in the “low hundreds.”

Some 300 UK military personnel are currently in Iraq, training Iraqi security forces and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters.

(L-R) Spain’s Defense Minister Pedro Morenes, Britain’s Defense Secretary Michael Fallon and the United States’ Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter take part in a meeting of the so-called anti-Daesh coalition in Stuttgart, southern Germany, May 4, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

The British minister also said that London plans to provide Peshmerga fighters with more ammunition for their machine guns.

During the Wednesday meeting, officials from the US-led collation agreed to do more in their purported campaign against Daesh terrorists.

Following the meeting, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said, “We… agreed that all of our friends and allies across the counter-ISIL (Daesh) coalition can and must do more.”

The US and some of its allies have allegedly been conducting airstrikes against Daesh extremists in Iraq since August 2014.

The US-led coalition also started air raids against purported Daesh positions in Syria without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate in September 2014. Many have criticized the ineffectiveness of the two campaigns.

The Daesh terror group, with members from several Western countries, has been committing heinous acts of terror and atrocities against people of different religious and ethnic communities, including Shias, Sunnis, Kurds and Christians, in Syria, Iraq, and other countries.

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