Britain boosts Iraq military trainers to combat Islamic State

Kim Hjelmgaard | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Obama, Merkel meet ahead of G-7 summit in Germany President Obama received a warm welcome from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and local Bavarians when he arrived in Germany for the G-7 meetings. Protesters filled streets elsewhere in the region through the weekend.

GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany — The United Kingdom will send an additional 125 military trainers to Iraq to counter the rising threat from the Islamic State, Prime Minister David Cameron said Sunday at the G-7 summit.

The prime minister's office said the military personnel were being provided at the request of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. They will chiefly help Iraqi forces learn how to deal with improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

The extra soldiers to train Iraq's military brings the total number of British troops operating there to around 200. The United States has about 3,000 troops in Iraq, and about 650 of them are military advisers and trainers.

In March, several dozen British troops were sent to the region to train Kurdish fighters who are battling the Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS.

On Sunday, Cameron described ISIL as the "biggest threat" being discussed at the two-day summit of the Group of Seven major industrial powers meeting in Germany.

Following the 2003 war in Iraq, Britain withdrew the last of its forces from the country in 2011.

The development comes ahead of separate meetings here Monday with Al-Abadi, Cameron and President Obama.

Cameron and Obama spoke briefly Sunday on the sidelines of the summit, and Obama appeared to indicate that he and Cameron would later talk about what's working to help defeat the Islamic State fighters. Obama said terrorism-related issues in Libya and Nigeria would also be discussed.

Despite recent setbacks in Iraq, including the fall of the key city of Ramadi to the Islamic State, the U.S.-led coalition forces fighting the militants say they are on the right track.

"In Iraq right now, we have the right strategy: a combination of coalition airstrikes, training, equipping, assisting and effective local partners," Tony Blinken, deputy secretary of State said Tuesday in Paris.

"That is the winning strategy, but only if both sides of the equation are present," Blinken said.

Meanwhile in Iraq, government troops backed by Shiite militias recaptured key parts of the northern refinery town of Beiji from the Islamic State on Sunday, Brig. Gen. Nassir al-Fartousi told state TV.

Al-Fartousi, the commander of the Interior Ministry's Quick Reaction Forces, said that the Iraqi flag was raised over a local government building in Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, and that troops were advancing to other areas, without elaborating, the Associated Press reported.

The spokesman of Joint Operations Command, Brig. Gen. Saad Maan Ibrahim, said the security forces "are now controlling" the downtown Beiji area, describing the advance as an "important victory."

"The enemy has suffered a defeat and has sustained heavy losses and we hope that the whole city will be cleared within few days," Maan told the AP, saying "dozens" of Islamic State militants had been killed.

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