“Iraq is a dangerous place, and I can’t tell you this is risk-free.”
Tomorrow, 330 Australian troops will head to the Middle East to boost numbers in the international fight against Islamic State.
Most of the soldiers will come from the Army's 7th Brigade, based in Brisbane.
They'll work in a taskforce on a capacity training mission with 100 troops from the New Zealand Defence Force and will be based at the Taji military complex north of Baghdad.
The mission is expected to go for two years.
CPL Shannon McCarthy / Department of Defence
The Prime Minister says the force will be operational by mid-May. "It is, as I stress, a capacity training mission not a training mission, but Iraq is a dangerous place. It is a dangerous place and I can't tell you that this is risk-free," he said.
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Australia joins other countries in the Building Partner Capacity mission including the US, Italy, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands.
"What we’ll be doing is comparable to what other countries are doing," Tony Abbott said.
“The important thing is to make an effective and meaningful contribution to the security of the wider world because, as I say, this is not just about Iraq; this is about our national security, too.”
Sergeant Hamish Paterson / Department of Defence.
