Australia to deploy special forces in Iraq

Australia's Foreign Minister Julie Bishop (pictured above with her counterpart Ibrahim al-Jaafari) told reporters in Baghdad that 200 Australian commandos would be sent to Iraq under a deal struck with senior Iraqi officials on Sunday.

"We have reached an agreement for a legal framework and now it will be a matter for our military when our special forces will be deployed," Bishop said at the end of a two-day visit to Baghdad.

The 200 special forces had been waiting in the United Arab Emirates since mid-September to receive formal legal protections from Baghdad that would make it possible for them to enter Iraq.

The agreement came one day after the Iraqi parliament approved new interior and defense ministers, overcoming a weeks-long political impasse that had widely been seen as a contributor to recent gains by the "Islamic State" (IS) extremists.

The militants hold the country's second most populous city, Mosul, and are making advances across the Sunni-dominated Anbar province, which extends from the Syrian border to Baghdad. The group seeks to establish a "caliphate" in Iraq and Syria.

Australia is part of the US-led coalition formed to combat IS, and and the country's fighter jets began hitting targets in Iraq earlier this month.

Bishop stressed, however, that the role of Australian special forces would be to "advise and assist the government of Iraq in building up the capacity of the Iraqi security forces." She said Canberra had no plans to send ground troops to fight alongside Iraqi forces. Both the Iraqi government and foreign governments providing assistance have balked at the use of foreign combat troops.

nm/rc (Reuters, AFP)