NATO Begins In-Country Training of Iraqi Officers to Help Anti-Daesh Fight

Jens Stoltenberg, NATO secretary general, explained what steps the Alliance takes to support the international coalition's fight against Daesh. In particular, the bloc has started giving in-country training to Iraqi officers.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — NATO has begun to give in-country training to Iraqi officers, which it earlier did in Jordan, along with providing AWACS planes to support the fight against Daesh, a terrorist group banned in Russia and many other countries, Jens Stoltenberg, NATO secretary general, said Thursday.

"NATO supports and participates in the counter-ISIL [one of the acronyms for Daesh] coalition. We provide AWACS surveillance planes, we have started to train Iraqi officers, first in Jordan, and now we also train them in Iraq," Stoltenberg said at a press conference he held with Bill English, the prime minister of New Zealand.

At the Warsaw Summit in July 2016, NATO took a decision to provide a special training to the Iraqi officers at the request of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi.

Iraqi forces, backed by the US-led international coalition, are currently leading an offensive to liberate Iraqi city of Mosul from the Daesh. The US Department of Defense said earlier in the day that 70 to 80 percent of the city's eastern districts had been freed.

Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) is NATO’s first integrated, multinational flying unit, providing rapid deployment, airborne surveillance and communication for NATO operations.