Australian PM Confirms 300 Ground Troops To Head To Iraq.

A 300-strong Australian Army Training team that will work alongside about 100 New Zealand Defence Force personnel will be fully operational in Iraq in mid-May, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on 14 April.

Australian PM Confirms 300 Ground Troops To Head To Iraq.

Both teams will be based at Taji, a logistics base about 50 km north of Baghdad, as part of the international effort to help Iraqi forces repel Islamic State in northern Iraq.

Abbott and New Zealand Prime Minister John Key announced the joint two-year initiative to train Iraqi troops in late February but gave no details of deployment dates.

Abbott said a 170-strong Australian special forces team that had been in Iraq since November 2014 mentoring and training their local counterparts would be drawn down between July and September of this year.

A Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) air task group (ATG), which began operations over Iraq and Syria in September 2014 flying from Al Minhad airbase in the UAE, would remain in place, Abbott said.

Six F/A-18F Super Hornet multirole fighters were replaced in the ATG in March by the same number of older F/A-18A "classic" Hornet multirole aircraft. They will continue to be supported by an RAAF KC-30A tanker/transport and an E-7A Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft.