Australia to deploy 300 additional troops for Mosul battle

The Australian troops will be stationed in Iraq for six months and will be deployed as part of Operation OKRA – the name given to Australia’s military contribution to current international efforts to tackle the threat posed by IS.

"Our mission is to train Iraqi Security Forces as they continue their fight against Daesh,” Colonel Richad Vagg, a member of the mission told local media on Thursday, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

Another Australian military figure, Brigadier Ben James noted that the deployment would be the fourth rotation of Australian and New Zealand soldiers in Iraq since Australia joined the international coalition fighting IS in September 2014.

"That fight against Daesh is really picking up, especially in that key area of Mosul," said James.

Operations to retake IS-held Mosul continue, led by the Iraqi Army and Kurdish Peshmerga forces, and supported by airstrikes conducted by a coalition of international states led by the United States, began on October 17.

Speaking on Wednesday, Jan Kubis, the UN’s head of operations in Iraq, said that Iraqi army and Peshmerga forces were making steady progress towards liberating the city, while trying to minimise civilian casualties.

Aid groups have repeatedly expressed concern that civilians in Mosul could become caught up in the conflict, with claims that they could be used as “human shields” by IS fighters.

The total cost of Australia’s Operation Okra is set to reach $940.7 million by 2018-19. Australian military commanders have said that their forces in Iraq have no direct combat role in the country, but are working as strategic advisors and trainers to Iraqi forces, with troops based at Camp Taji, just north of Baghdad.

Australia, a strong ally of the US, has been on high alert for home-grown radicals since the emergence of IS in 2014, and in the wake of a number of seemingly IS-inspired “lone wolf” attacks, including the siege of a Sydney café in 2014.