New Zealand to begin scaling back non-combat mission in Iraq next month

New Zealand will call time on its non-combat mission in Iraq next month and bring home the last of its troops by mid-2020, according to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

Wellington deployed troops on a “behind-the-wire” training mission in 2015 to boost the ability of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) to fight Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS).

Ardern said on Monday the small contingent of troops, currently 95, who have been working alongside the Australian army at the Taji military base north of Baghdad, had completed their mission.

“When it comes to Iraq, it’s time to go,” Ardern said, adding that 44,000 ISF personnel had been trained at the base. New Zealand troop numbers at Taji will fall to 75 next month, then 45 in January 2020, before the withdrawal in June next year, AFP reported.