Australia to Send Troops to Middle East

Prime Minister Tony Abbot said that Australia will send 600 troops to the Middle East in response to a request from the United States.

Abbot said that troops will be deployed initially in the United Arab Emirates.

It will also deploy eight F/A18 aircrafts, an E-7A Wedge tail Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft and a KC-30A multi role Tanker and Transport aircraft, reports AFP.

The Australian Prime Minister said that the decision to send the troops was intensified by the video showing the killing of British aid worker David Haines.  He added that he was shocked and outraged by the footage.

"We've seen beheadings, crucifixions, we've seen mass executions, we've seen hundreds of thousands of people driven from their homes, we've had women forced into sexual slavery, we've had the deaths of very young children, we've had tens of thousands of people besieged on Mount Sinjar," he said.

"What we have seen is an exaltation in atrocity unparalleled since the Middle Ages. All I know is that decent people everywhere regardless of their religion, regardless of their culture, should unite against it," he added, reports The Telegraph.

Abbot said that Australia is not deploying combat troops but is boosting internal efforts to prevent the crisis from escalating.

Abbot said that he also talked with Obama who informed him that the U.S. was getting ready for a prolonged involvement in the region. He said that though his country has not committed to the war, he was ready to order combat against the Islamic State militants.

However, Christine Milne, leader of the Australian political party, Greens, termed the operation as "mission creep".

Milne said that her party supported giving food, water and other humanitarian aid to isolated regions. But when Australia gives weapons to militias, it is indulging in war, she said.

"This is an open ended commitment of young Australian lives to a United States war in Iraq. It's hard to see how that could possibly end well for the people in Iraq or in Australia," she added, reports The Guardian.