"The training we are going to be offering [to Iraqi and Kurdish forces] in January will be in infantry skills and some of the basics but particularly on how you deal with IEDs [Improvised Explosive Device],” Defense Secretary Michael Fallon was quoted as saying by the newspaper. “We have not finalised numbers yet … but we are talking very low hundreds.”
This mission will represent the first notable deployment of ground troops since the last UK troops left Iraq in 2011, as reported by The Telegraph. Currently, the United Kingdom has 50 troops in Iraq on a training mission.
Fallon added that a number of combat-ready soldiers would also be deployed to protect the UK personnel “if necessary”.
According to the newspaper, the training teams will be based in safe areas on Kurdish territory and three other teams will be located near the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.
The UK is part of the US-led international coalition conducting airstrikes on IS positions in both Syria and Iraq. To evade the airstrikes, IS militants have been hiding in towns and villages.
“That means they have got to be rooted out by ground troops. This has to be done by an own-grown army not by western groups,” Fallon told The Telegraph.
In the recent days the extremist militant group has been gaining ground in Iraq’s largest province of Anbar, bordering Syria, while capturing countryside towns in other regions as well.
Islamic State has been fighting the Syrian government since 2012 and making advances in Iraq since June. The IS is responsible for horrific atrocities including beheadings and public crucifixions. The group declared a caliphate on the territories it has captured across Syria and Iraq.
