Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary General of NATO, will hold a press conference on 15 February 2021 ahead of the meetings of NATO Defense Ministers at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.
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WASHINGTON – NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday announced that the 30-member alliance will expand its security training mission in Iraq to prevent the war-torn country from becoming a safe haven for international terrorists.
“The scope of our mission will increase from 500 staff to approximately 4,000 and training activities will now include more Iraqi security institutions and areas outside Baghdad,” Stoltenberg told reporters at the end of a two-day meeting of the virtual NATO defense minister.
“Our presence is based on conditions and the increase in the number of troops will be incremental,” he said, adding that the Iraqi government had called for an extended mission.
Earlier this week, a senior defense official told reporters before the NATO meeting that the Pentagon was “enthusiastic about and welcomed NATO’s growing focus on Iraq.” The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, would not disclose whether the U.S. military was willing to contribute more troops to the training mission in Iraq.
The United States has 2,500 troops in Iraq.
“ISIS is still operating in Iraq and we need to make sure they can not return,” Stoltenberg said on Thursday, adding that the alliance had seen a slight increase in attacks.
The decision to expand NATO’s footprint in Iraq comes on the heels of a deadly rocket attack in the city of Irbil.
A worker cleans broken glass on February 16, 2021 outside a damaged shop after a rocket attack the previous night in Arbil, the capital of the northern Iraqi Kurdish autonomous region.
Safin Hamed | AFP | Getty Images
The attack on Monday claimed the life of one civilian contractor and injured nine others, including a U.S. service member, according to Col. Wayne Marotto, spokesman for the coalition fighting ISIS.
A Shiite group called Awliya Al Dam has claimed responsibility for the attack and is believed to be a front for an Iranian military group. The White House, the Pentagon and the State Department have not publicly confirmed who was behind the attack.
The foreign ministry on Wednesday promised to impose consequences on those responsible, but gave little details.
“We are not going to see an example of a response, but it is fair to say that there will be consequences for any group responsible for this attack,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ned Price said during told a press conference to reporters.
“Any response we take will be in full coordination with the government of Iraq and also with our coalition partners,” he added.
A day after the attack, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the White House was ‘furious’ about the violence in Iraq.
Psaki also said the Biden government is working with partners in the region to conduct an investigation into the attack.