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| Iraq |
| Aussie soldiers being transfered to Tallil |
| 2006-06-19 |
| IRAQ will take over security responsibilities in al-Muthanna province and Australian soldiers there would transfer to a new base at Tallil, Defence Minister Brendan Nelson said today. Tallil was a major coalition base outside the city of Nasiriyah, Dr Nelson said. Australia has 460 soldiers in the al-Muthanna taskgroup whose job has been guarding Japanese military engineers and training Iraqi troops. Dr Nelson said the job of guarding the Japanese engineers would continue until such time as the Japanese withdrew. "I can confirm that our soldiers will be based at Tallil, just north of the Dhi qar-al-Muthanna border," he said. "In this new phase of operations our soldiers will be doing very important work. They will be training and mentoring Iraqi soldiers. "They will be supporting border protection activities, particularly on the Syrian border," Dr Nelson said. But that did not mean Australian troops would be operating along the dangerous Syrian border area, he said. He said terrorists might choose to target the al-Muthanna region because of its transition to Iraqi Government control. |
| Posted by:Oztralian |