Turkey Starts Training Iraqi National Guard to Fight ISIL

Turkey has begun training members of Iraq's National Guard in northern Mosul governorate in order to combat Islamic State militants, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Thursday.

ANKARA (Sputnik) – In 2014, Turkey started training Kurdish militias in northern Iraq, also known as Peshmerga. The militia has reportedly liberated about 95 percent of the Iraqi Kurdistan from the jihadists.

“Turkey has launched a training program for the Iraqi National Guard as part of the struggle against Islamic State militants,” Cavusoglu said in an interview with A Haber television.

The Turkish foreign minister added that the training is taking place about 15 miles from Iraq's second-biggest city of Mosul, controlled by the IS since last February.

In 2012, the IS began fighting the Syrian government, later expanding its operations to Iraq. The militant group currently controls large areas across Iraq and Syria, including major cities.

A US-led coalition is conducting airstrikes against the militants, while Syrian and Iraqi government troops, as well as Kurdish militias, are fighting the IS on the ground.