(Australian) Govt assigns new roles to troops in Iraq

[grytpype]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200605/s1652108.htm

The Federal Government has announced two new tasks for Australian troops serving in Iraq.

The Defence Minister Brendan Nelson says from June, a team of about 30 people will help train Iraqi Army instructors at Tallil, in southern Iraq.

About a half a dozen other Australian soldiers will be based at a Counter Insurgency Academy at Taji, near Baghdad.

Dr Nelson says negotiations are continuing on where to redeploy other Australian troops once their current role finishes in the next couple of months.

"As far as where our troops will be, I'm not prepared at this stage to publicly identify where our troops are likely to be based, we do have a preference, it is not Basra, we do have a clear preference, we're negotiating that with the Iraqis, the British and our other allies and also the Italians," he said.

Basra is about 550 kilometres south of Baghdad.

...

Basra has also been in a security emergency for a couple of weeks!