ERBIL, Kurdistan Region- New Zealand will be withdrawing its troops sent to train Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) by June 2020, announced the New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, despite an uptick in Islamic State (ISIS) sleeper cell attacks.
New Zealand joined the US-led Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS when it was founded in 2014. The coalition was established after ISIS swept across northern Iraq, overtaking the majority of Nineveh province — home to country's largest city of Mosul — and threatening both the federal and regional capitals of Baghdad and Erbil.
In 2015, New Zealand began their non-combat mission to train Iraqi security forces for their fight against ISIS. Originally the mission was to last two years, but was renewed in 2016, and again in 2018.
The training, part of the Partner Capacity Building Program, included combat first aid, live fire training, and arms handling.
New Zealand currently has 95 personnel remaining in Iraq, mostly based in the Taji Military Complex, in Northwest of Iraq’s capital Baghdad.
The New Zealand forces are jointly training Iraqi forces alongside the Australian forces.
Now, they will shift their focus to training Iraqi trainers, Ardern said, adding that “significant progress” had been made in Iraqi capabilities.
“As a result of this success, our deployment at [Base] Taji will reduce to a maximum of 75 from July, and move down to a maximum of 45 from January, before the mission’s ultimate completion in June 2020," she added.
An ISIS resurgence has been “factored” into the decision, but “when it comes to Iraq, it is time to go”, said the PM.
Ardern also committed to the withdrawal of Kiwi troops from Afghanistan by December 31, 2020.
In the same briefing, New Zealand Defense Minister Ron Mark said that the mission “accomplished what it set out to do” and that New Zealand forces were making a “difference”, with around 42,000 ISF members trained, added Mark.
Mark called New Zealand’s withdrawal a “carefully planned exit strategy”.
New Zealand’s humanitarian role and contribution to Iraq’s reconstruction will continue nevertheless, Ardern said, pledging to increase New Zealand’s “stabilization funding” contribution to around $9 million dollars over the next three years “to help affected communities recover”.
New Zealand has provided Iraq with $7.75 million of “development assistance” since 2014, she detailed.
ISIS was declared defeated at the end of 2017 by Iraq’s former Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.
Since then, however, the group has resorted to older hit and run tactics. It has For example, many mukhtars (village or neighborhood chiefs) in Iraq have been killed by the group.
Moreover, the group has been blamed by locals for many fires recently which have engulfed Iraq’s wheat and barley croplands.
ISIS, for its part, has claimed many of the arsons that sprang up across Iraq’s northern provinces — albeit after the fact.
Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite politician, has warned that Iraq may face “a third generation of terrorism” and an ISIS resurgence.
