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Australian planes to deliver weapons for Kurds fighting Islamic State Australian planes to deliver weapons for Kurds fighting Islamic State
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Australian war planes will deliver arms and munitions to Kurdish fighters battling Islamic state militants in Iraq. Australia will help deliver weapons to Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq in an attempt to counter the threat posed by Islamic State militants.
The prime minister, Tony Abbott, has agreed to a United States government request for Australia to transport military equipment on the Royal Australian Air Force C-130J Hercules and C-17A Globemaster aircraft. Tony Abbott said the US government had requested that Australia help to transport stores of military equipment, including arms and munitions, as part of a multinational effort.
“Australia will join international partners to help the anti-ISIL forces in Iraq,” Abbott said in a statement. “Royal Australian Air Force C-130 Hercules and C-17 Globemaster aircraft will join aircraft from other nations including Canada, Italy, France, the United Kingdom and the United States to conduct this important task,” the prime minister said in a statement on Sunday.
The move follows RAAF airdrops of humanitarian supplies to thousands of people stranded on Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq. “Australia’s contribution will continue to be coordinated with the government of Iraq and regional countries.”
“The situation in Iraq represents a humanitarian catastrophe,” Abbott said. The Labor opposition signalled its support for the decision, saying the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters were the only effective barrier to Isis slaughtering civilian populations while advancing through northern Iraq.
He remains in close contact with the US and other allies. Last week the US defence secretary, Chuck Hagel, said seven nations – Albania, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Italy, France and the UK – had joined the US and the Iraqi government in committing “to helping provide Kurdish forces urgently needed arms and equipment”.
Australian planes will fly alongside aircraft from Canada, Italy, France, the United Kingdom and the United States. Heval Syan, a representative of the Kurdistan regional government (KRG) in Iraq, recently urged Australia to provide support to the Peshmerga with humanitarian assistance and military support.
The Iraq government and other regional countries will coordinate Australia’s contribution. “Deliveries of the military equipment and ammunitions are urgently needed for Peshmerga to achieve gains on the ground,” Syan said in a letter to the foreign minister, Julie Bishop.
The immigration minister, Scott Morrison, declined to comment on reports Australia could also be asked to consider deploying Super Hornets for air strikes. “It is now time for the international community especially the Australian government to step forward urgently and provide the KRG with humanitarian assistance and military support, particularly equipment and air support.”
The US had not made that request. “We’re not going to get ahead of ourselves,” he told Sky News. The Australian government is not providing weapons itself but will be delivering the equipment supplied by other nations.
However, the government was looking at Australia’s military capability across a range of areas and would consider other requests. Defining the mission and the objective was critical, Morrison said. Abbott said the decision, made by cabinet’s national security committee, followed Australia’s involvement in the successful international humanitarian relief effort that dropped supplies to the thousands of people stranded on Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq.
“Let’s not kid ourselves either, [the Islamic state] does present a threat. What we’re seeing there is evil incarnate,” he said. “The situation in Iraq represents a humanitarian catastrophe,” he said.
Abbott said Australia remained “in close contact with the US and other international partners” and would “continue to work to alleviate the humanitarian situation in Iraq” and address the security threat posed by Isis. This is an indication that Australia remains open to a potential US request to join an aerial campaign, such as the use of Super Hornets in air strikes.
The opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman, Tanya Plibersek, said the Peshmerga and others had been “the only effective fighting force” stopping Isis.
Labor had supported Australia’s humanitarian effort to protect civilian populations and saw the delivery of arms to the anti-Isis fighters as a “logical next step”.
“Where you have an effective or reasonably effective fighting force on the ground being the only thing standing between [Isis] and civilian populations that are at risk of genocide or ethnic cleansing, then there is an international responsibility to assist those people to hold back [Isis],” she told the ABC on Sunday.
Plibersek, who strongly opposed the 2003 Iraq war, drew a contrast between the circumstances then and the process now.
She said the 2003 invasion was “a disaster” and people would remember how “enthusiastic” the Bush, Blair and Howard administrations were.
“In 2003, the US and Australia and a few others went into Iraq without international support and without the support of the majority of the Iraqi population,” Plibersek said.
“The difference here is you’ve got the newly forming Iraqi government speaking with the international community. You’ve got an imminent humanitarian disaster. We have seen already that [Isis] are prepared to commit genocide if they can. So you do have a responsibility to protect from the international community and you’ve got a US administration that are taking a much more methodical and much more internationally inclusive approach.”
Abbott has said the government was not considering putting Australian combat troops on the ground in Iraq. The Greens have renewed calls for military action to be subject to parliamentary debate and vote.
The Iraq discussions come as the government seeks to build support for its national security crackdown, although it is yet to present to parliament a second tranche of legislation to make it easier to detain and prosecute foreign fighters.
Australia’s terrorism threat level remains at “medium”, which means a terrorist attack could occur, the same level as it has been for more than a decade.
The attorney general, George Brandis, said the threat level was “under constant review” and noted the UK government had raised its terrorism threat level from ‘substantial’ to ‘severe’.
Intelligence agencies have said about 60 Australians are involved in fighting in Iraq and Syria.