The German military has begun training 32 Kurdish fighters from northern Iraq at an army school in Bavaria on handling weaponry provided by Berlin to support their battle against Islamic State jihadists, officials said Sunday. The fighters, who arrived Saturday, will receive instruction on using Bundeswehr anti-tank Milan missiles, a defence ministry spokesman told AFP.
The training will takes place at an infantry training centre in the southern town of Hammelburg through Friday. German military personnel this week are also due to start training Kurdish fighters in Iraq, Der Spiegel news weekly reported Saturday. That training is expected to run until the end of November, the magazine said.
Late last month Berlin announced that it was sending weapons to the Peshmerga Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq to help them fight off IS militants who have seized large swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria.