Iraq crisis: Australia delivers military supplies to Kurdish forces battling Islamic State; relatives of abducted Iraqi soldiers storm parliament

Updated

Australian air force planes have delivered ammunition to outgunned Kurdish Peshmerga forces battling Islamic State (IS) fighters in northern Iraq.

In a statement on Tuesday night, the Defence Department confirmed a RAAF C-17A Globemaster carried military stores of ammunition to the Kurdish capital of Erbil from Dubai.

The delivery came hours before IS released a video purporting to show the beheading of a second captured US journalist, Steven Sotloff.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Sunday announced Australian planes would deliver humanitarian aid and weapons into Iraq as part of a multi-nation effort to help Iraqis fighting IS.

Mr Abbott said while Australia had agreed to a request from the United States to carry arms and munitions from Eastern bloc countries to Kurdish forces, there was "no intention" to send combat troops to fight IS.

"Obviously, it is very important for Australia, it's very important for Iraq, it's very important for the whole world that this death cult be defeated," he told 7.30 last night.

"Apart from anything else, we've got about 150 Australians who are one way or another involved with these terrorist groups. We might not naturally want to reach out to the Middle East but, tragically, the Middle East is reaching out to us."

Iraq's ambassador to Australia Mouayed Saleh said there was no chance the military equipment Australia had sent to northern Iraq would fall into the wrong hands.

"First of all, we need weapons to fight the terrorists and we're making very sure it gets delivered to Peshmerga, or to the Iraqi army, so there is no chance it would fall into the wrong hands," Mr Saleh said.

Government will not be intimidated by 'threats of murderers'

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the killing of Sotloff "demonstrates that we are dealing with pure evil".

"This is a hideous movement that not only does evil, it revels in evil," he told a press conference.

Sorry, this video has expired Video: Ben Knight reports on the execution (7pm TV News NSW)

"It exalts in evil and it abundantly justifies what Australia and other countries are doing to assist people who are threatened by this murderous rage, to protect people who are at risk from this murderous rage."

The apparent footage of Sotloff's death included a warning from IS to nations who are supporting the US air strikes in Iraq.

Treasurer Joe Hockey has told Radio National the Government will not be intimidated by "the threats of murderers".

"It's not about following the US into Iraq. It is about doing what is right," he said.

Angry relatives demand news on abducted soldiers

Australia on the weekend dropped supplies of food and water into the Iraqi town of Amerli, which had been surrounded by IS fighters for more than two months, leaving as many as 15,000 Shiite Turkmen trapped.

The delivery came as more than 100 angry relatives of Iraqi soldiers abducted by IS fighters broke into Iraq's parliament in Baghdad armed with sticks, metal bars and stones, demanding news of their loved ones.

The crowd, mostly from Iraq's Shiite majority, smashed some equipment, assaulted at least two staff members they mistook for politicians and were refusing to leave the building, officials inside said.

"They were ready to bulldoze anyone standing in front of them," a parliament employee said.

"They were saying 'our sons are buried in the dust. We don't even know their names, and you are sitting here in comfort under the air conditioning'."

The employee said a special force unit with batons came to remove them from parliament. The relatives had been scheduled to address parliament about the fate of their loved ones.

IS captured the soldiers in June at the start of its lightening advance through northern and central Iraq, where it declared an Islamic caliphate and threatened to march on Baghdad.

The soldiers walked out of their base in Tikrit, north of the capital, believing a truce had been brokered. Instead, IS took them and later reported it had killed 1,700 soldiers, posting pictures of corpses online.

There have been no independent reports on how many died. Locals in Tikrit said in June they believed the number was in the hundreds.

Evidence of war crimes in northern Iraq: Amnesty

Amnesty International says it has proof IS militants have launched a campaign of ethnic cleansing against minorities in northern Iraq.

In a report, the human rights group said there is evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including mass killings and abductions.

Amnesty's senior human rights advisor, Donatella Rovera, said the militants have shown no mercy.

"The brutality with which the Islamic State group rounded up men and boys and just murdered them in cold blood," she told the ABC.

"And according to the survivors, they then went and checked if there was anybody who was still alive and finished them off."

Human Rights Watch said it believes that IS fighters have obtained cluster munitions and are using them.

The organisation said it has investigated two instances in recent months where it appears IS fighters deployed ground-based cluster munitions, killing five people including a child.

Speaking from an international conference on the treaty to ban cluster munitions in Costa Rica, Human Rights Watch spokeswoman Mary Wareham said it is no longer only government forces using the weapons.

"What it means is that the conflict is diversifying," she told the PM program.

"There are now multiple fronts that are being fought at the moment, so it's getting a lot more complicated."

ABC/Reuters

Topics: unrest-conflict-and-war, government-and-politics, defence-forces, iraq

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