Italy trains 2 thousand soldiers in Iraq to fight ISIS

ROME – “I arrived in the operational theater at the beginning of November. I found a prepared contingent, ready for any type of threat. Our posture has not changed although we are spectators of a continuous evolution in the international sphere. It is the beginning of November, a few days after the tragic events of October 7, when Colonel Francesco Antonio Serafini […]

ROME – “I arrived in the operational theater at the beginning of November. I found a prepared contingent, ready for any type of threat. Our posture has not changed although we are spectators of a continuous evolution in the international context”. It is the beginning of November, a few days after the tragic events of October 7, when Colonel Francesco Antonio Serafini arrives at Camp Singara, in strong>Iraqi Kurdistan, to take command of the Prima Parthica mission, which began in 2014 “in support of the international coalition to intervene against Daesh”.

300 THE ITALIAN MILITARY BETWEEN BAGHDAD AND ERBIL

There are 300 Italian soldiers who, located between Baghdad and Erbil, as the Colonel explains to Italian journalists during an exercise in Benaslava, are engaged in various activities aimed at training the peshmerga, the Kurdish army . Those who were fighters against ISIS and who today need to train and train. “In 2023, 2,000 peshmerga soldiers were trained; in 2024, more than 400,000 units of the Federal Police”, the Colonel declared to the press. The need is there because “ISIS was defeated in 2017 – as Colonel Serafini recalls – but there are pockets of resistance in Iraqi territory. It is fundamental to training activity of the Peshmerga to avoid a possible return”. Among the courses, mentioned by the Commander, were marksman training, bomb detection, crowd control with the Carabinieri in Baghdad and combat in mountain areas. “There is great appreciation from all the local authorities who are grateful to Italy for the effort it is making.”