January 16, 2015
Britain is sending bomb detection equipment used by troops in Afghanistan to soldiers fighting ISIS in Iraq, it has emerged.
The move is said to be ‘softening the blow’ as the Government delays plans to send hundreds of troops to the Middle East – amid fears of further casualties in an election year.
As David Cameron joined Barack Obama in talks in Washington yesterday, Pentagon sources were said to be furious that the UK appeared to be pulling back from its decision to deploy training teams to the region.
In the next few weeks, the MoD will ship hundreds of the hand-held devices used to detect roadside bombs to Iraqi security forces trying to drive out ISIS militants from strongholds across the region.
The counter-IED (Improvised Explosive Device) equipment became critical during the war in Afghanistan when the Taliban began laying the homemade bombs, killing hundreds of Allied soldiers.
ISIS fanatics have started laying IEDs to take out Iraqi forces as part of a change in tactics to slow advances after UK airstrikes blasted their vehicles and killed their fighters.
A defence source said: ‘This is what the Iraqis are most terrified of because they go out onto these roads and get blown up. It is destroying morale.’
Hundreds of highly sensitive detectors are expected to be sent to the region. As many as 800 will also be sent to Pakistan to help with the fight against the Taliban.
Last year it emerged in a Defence Select Committee that the Iraqi government had asked the MoD to help with training the Army in counter-IED measures due to their specialist knowledge.
Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, then announced in December that hundreds of British troops would be sent to Iraq this month in a dramatic escalation of the war on terror.
But the Ministry of Defence admitted there would be nowhere near that amount sent to the war-torn country within that timescale.
Plans to train the Kurdish Peshmerga and Iraqi security threats to counter threats from roadside bombs were still being ‘scoped’, the MoD said earlier this month.
A source told the Mail: ‘The Government are playing hot and cold with any decision to send more troops to Iraq before the election and it isn’t yet clear what is happening.’ They said counter-IED equipment would be sent in the meantime.
The Defence Select Committee visited Iraq before Christmas and were greeted with appreciations from US and Iraqi forces for committing more troops to help fight IS.
But news that the UK is delaying plans to commit trainers is said to have angered the Pentagon.
‘It is embarrassing – does the UK want to be seen as a mini-Denmark or do we want to be taken seriously’, a source added.
This week the Germans announced they were sending 100 troops to the region, the French have sent an aircraft carrier and numerous other countries have deployed military assets.
Downing Street are said to be worried that significantly stepping up the UK’s military campaign in the Middle East could influence the general election campaign.
Senior officials apparently fear there would be a public backlash if serving UK soldiers were killed while training Iraqi security forces against jihadists.
It comes after Mr Fallon announced that hundreds British service personnel would be training Iraqi and Kurdish forces to fight Islamist jihadists as soon as this month.
A ‘force protection’ deployment of combat-ready soldiers was also expected to be sent to defend the military training teams, who would be based at four US bases inside Iraq, Mr Fallon said.
The new mission would mark the first significant deployment of ground forces since the last British troops withdrew from Iraq three years ago.
Soldiers were set to teach the Iraqi army vital skills, such as how to counter deadly roadside bombs.
A handful of British trainers have already been deployed to Iraq to work with the Kurdish and Iraqi security forces.
But the move signified Britain’s commitment to a ‘large-scale venture’ in which US-led training programmes are being rolled out to soldiers fighting against militants taking over swathes of the country.
They were expected to join four large American training bases that are being established to train and advise the Iraqi army on a wider scale.
An MOD spokesman said: ‘As the Defence Secretary has said, as well as considering requests for further training to Iraqi forces and advisory personnel to Iraqi headquarters, the UK would consider requests for equipment or training as they are received.’