Iraq: winter training in Kurdistan

(To Army Majority State)
29/03/19

With the spring the rhythm of Italian instructors in the Iraq mission, employed in training the Kurdish security forces, resumed at full speed. The Italian Army specialists belonging to Infantry, Genius and Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense are employed daily in the training of the units Peshmerga, at the training centers of Sulaymaniya, Atrush and Benaslawa, working in coordination and synergy with colleagues from other nations belonging to the Coalition. In the same way, elements of the Staff of the Kurdistan Training Coordination Center, led by the Italian colonel Antonio Fantastico, are in charge of planning the activities, maintaining contacts with the top management of the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs and with the Kurdish Ministry of the Interior.

Also during the winter season the activities were carried out regularly, oriented above all to the training of the Kurdish instructors who, alongside the 2018, assist the instructors of the Coalition in the conduct of the training. The heavy rains and snowfalls, which usually turn Kurdish topography into a continental mountain environment for a few months, did not interrupt the start of the 2019 training season. Italian soldiers are playing a leading role in the training of peshmerga units, refining combat techniques and tactics, providing health first aid, fighting the chemical threat and improvising explosive devices, in order to effectively combat the elements of Daesh still present in Iraq.

The Kurdistan Training Coordination Center, since 13 June 2018 is an exclusive Italian guide and is part of the Combined Joint Task Force involved in the "Inherente Resolve" operation. It is composed of approximately 300 men and women from Italy, Germany, Great Britain, Holland, Finland, Slovenia, Turkey and Hungary.

The soldiers of the Italian Armed Forces of the First Parthica operation, operating inside the Kurdistan Training Coordination Center and the Police Task Force Iraq, from January 2015 to today have trained about 48.000 soldiers belonging to the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs and the Ministry of the Interior Kurdish gathering demonstrations of esteem and thanks from the Coalition and the Iraqi civil and military authorities.