Australia to deploy forces to Middle East

Anne Davies and Gareth Hutchens

Australia will send 600 military personnel, including SAS troops, and eight FA18 Super Hornets to the United Arab Emirates in preparation for a dramatic escalation of the multinational effort to contain the Islamic State that now holds parts of northern Iraq and Syria.

 Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced the mobilisation and deployment from Darwin, where he is about to tour Arnhem Land. It followed another beheading, this time of an English aid worker, by Islamic State militants.

The troops include 400 air-related personnel to support the deployment of the fighter jets. An Early Warning and Control aircraft and an aerial refuelling aircraft will also be sent from  Amberley airbase in the next week.

Another 200 other military personnel, expected to be mainly from the elite Special Air Services (SAS) based in Perth, will leave sooner. The Prime Minister said the special forces personnel will go into Iraq as military advisers to the Iraqi Army and the Kurdish Peshmerga forces.

"We think this is a balanced and proportionate contribution to what is our fight but it is the world's fight [too]," Mr Abbott said.

"Australia is prepared to engage in these operations because of the threat that this murderous death cult poses ... because it has  ambitions beyond any other group to arise so far."

"It is neither Islamic or a state," he said.

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The President emphasised US ground troops would not return to a war-torn Iraq. Instead the US-led coalition – which includes Australia – would rely on a mix of more aggressive airstrikes, supporting local forces on the ground, counterterrorism measures and providing humanitarian assistance to innocent civilians displaced by the terrorist group.

Mr Abbott said Australians should prepared for a long fight of weeks or even months.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australia-to-deploy-forces-to-middle-east-20140914-10gqfc.html#ixzz3DGSJTEJD