NATO plans military academies for Iraqi forces – Stoltenberg

NATO’s secretary general has said the alliance plans to step up training of Iraq’s armed forces, including by setting up military academies. The goal of training is to ensure that the extremist Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) “is never able to come back in the way we have seen before,” AP quoted Jens Stoltenberg as saying on Tuesday. Iraqi officials declared victory over IS in December and now want to focus on training the armed forces with the help of NATO and Western nations. Despite the billions of dollars spent on training Iraqi forces after the 2003 US-led invasion, the military suffered a defeat when IS militants swept through nearly one-third of Iraq in mid-2014.