Sydney : In its third such airlift, Australia has delivered 50 tonnes of arms and ammunition to Kurdish forces battling Islamic militants in northern Iraq, the country’s defence ministry announced Monday.
As on the two previous occasions, a C-17A aircraft flew from Tirana in Albania via Baghdad where Iraqi forces inspected the cargo, then on to the city of Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, a ministry statement said.
The delivery was made without any incident and the aircraft was now at the Al Minhad Air Base in the United Arab Emirates.
Australia is shipping weapons and other military supplies to the forces fighting militants of the Islamic State (IS) Sunni extremists organisation along with the US, Albania, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Italy, France and Britain.
The shipments complement the almost 100 airstrikes by US warplanes on IS positions which began a month ago.