Prime Minister Tony Abbott, seen with Air Chief Marshal Mark Binski, is speaking at a press conference in Darwin on Sunday when he announced the deployment of Australian troops.
Reuters/Perth, Australia
Australia became the first country to detail troop numbers and aircraft for a US-led coalition fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq, as Washington drums up support for global action to counter the terrorist threat.
Australia Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Sunday a 600-strong force comprising some 400 air force personnel and 200 special forces soldiers would be deployed to a US military base in the United Arab Emirates.
A number of countries have responded to US President Barack Obama's call to join a coalition against Islamic State, but Australia is the first to publicly provide specific troop numbers and military hardware for the mission.
Obama is leading an effort to form a coalition of Western allies and Gulf Arab states to take on the extremist group, whose savage methods have included beheading two American journalists and a British aid worker.
Abbott said along with the troops, Australia would send eight super hornet fighter jets, an early warning and control aircraft and an aerial refuelling aircraft. He said they would be deployed in the coming days.
A task group of military advisers to assist Iraqi and other security forces fighting the militants would form part of the deployment but Abbott said he had not yet made the decision to commit troops to combat action.
"I have to warn the Australian people that should this preparation and deployment extend into combat operations, that this could go on for quite some time," he told reporters in the northern city of Darwin.
Abbott said Australia did not intend to operate in Syria.
Obama announced his plans in a prime time address on Wednesday to build an alliance to root out Islamic State in both Syria and Iraq, plunging the US into two conflicts in which nearly every country in the Middle East has a stake.
US Secretary of State John Kerry is touring the Middle East to try to secure backing for the plan, and on Thursday won the backing for a "coordinated military campaign" from 10 Arab countries - Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and six Gulf states including Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
However, a lack of detail on commitments from NATO allies and Turkey's reluctance to play a frontline role have highlighted the difficulty of building a willing coalition for a complex military campaign.
Britain has said it supports US air strikes and Prime Minister David Cameron has said repeatedly that Britain itself has ruled nothing out except combat troops on the ground.
Like Australia, Britain has delivered humanitarian aid, carried out surveillance, given weapons to Kurds and promised training in Iraq.
France has confirmed its commitment to use military force in Iraq, but it was unclear whether France would join strikes in Syria. Germany has said it won't take part in air strikes.
US officials say Kerry is also seeking permission to make more use of bases in the region and fly more warplanes overhead.
The region has been galvanised since June when Islamic State fighters, already in control of much of Syria, swept through northern Iraq, seizing cities, slaughtering prisoners, and proclaiming a "caliphate" that would rule over all Muslims.
The White House says the group is a threat to the West as well, attracting fighters from around the world who could return to carry out attacks at home.
Islamic State stirred new outrage on Saturday with a video purporting to show the beheading of British aid worker David Haines. British Prime Minister David Cameron called it "a despicable and appalling murder," and vowed to bring the killers to justice.
Describing the Islamic State as a "death cult", Abbott said the beheadings had made him "more resolved than ever to do what we reasonably can to disrupt, degrade and if possible, destroy this movement".
The Australian government on Friday raised its domestic terror alert to 'high' for the first time, citing the likelihood of terrorist attacks by Australian citizens radicalised in Iraq or Syria.
