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Denmark to transport weapons to Iraq

After previously only offering to aid the humanitarian effort in northern Iraq, the Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday decided to send weapons to Kurdish forces fighting Isis. Some 55 troops will accompany the transport.

Published: 21 August 2014 20:25 CEST
Denmark to transport weapons to Iraq
The Hercules C-130 aircraft could leave as early as next week. Photo: Henning Bagger/Scanpix
The Danish contribution to the US mission in northern Iraq will not be limited to humanitarian aid. The Foreign Affairs Committee (Udenrigspolitisk Nævn) decided on Thursday that Denmark will also transport weapons and send a contingent of troops. 
 
“Denmark’s government is ready to support the fight against [the Islamic State] with a Hercules air transport of light arms and ammunition and logistics. Also more humanitarian aid,” Foreign Minister Martin Lidegaard wrote on Twitter. 
Denmark will send a Hercules C-130 aircraft carrier carrying humanitarian aid to those who have fled the forward march of the Islamic State, as well as deliver weapons and other military equipment to the Iraqi government and Kurdish forces in the area. Around 55 soldiers will accompany the mission. 
 
Lidegaard said that the Danish military action would be limited. 
 
“It is an isolated transport action that we have committed to. We have not committed to either F-16 jets or as what the Americans would call ‘boots on the ground’,” Lidegaard said following the committee’s five-hour meeting on Thursday, according to Politiken. 
 
 
The mission in Iraq has the support of all of Denmark’s political parties with the exception of the left-wing Red-Green Alliance (Enhedslisten). The Foreign Affairs Committee’s recommendation is expected to be approved by parliament on Wednesday.
 
“As soon as the green button is pushed in parliament, the plane is ready to take flight. The crew will consist of 55 men and a small portion of them will be bodyguards as the mission is not without risk. We think it is incredibly import to bring weapons and ammunition to those who are protecting civilians against [the Islamic State],” Defence Minister Nicolai Wammen told Berlingske Nyhedsbureau. 
 
 
Denmark had previously only mentioned contributing humanitarian aid to Iraq before the change of course in Thursday’s meeting. The Foreign Affairs Committee met shortly after The Guardian reported that the Islamic State, the terrorist group formerly known as Isis, had taken a Dane hostage. The Foreign Ministry has not confirmed that information, and Lidegaard denied that the report had any influence on the committee’s decision. 

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ISIS

Ex-jihadi housewife jailed in Norway for joining IS

A Norwegian court on Tuesday sentenced a woman who lived as a housewife in Syria to prison for being a member of the Islamic State group (IS), despite not actively fighting herself.

Published: 4 May 2021 20:11 CEST
Ex-jihadi housewife jailed in Norway for joining IS
The Kurdish-run al-Hol camp which holds suspected relatives of Islamic State fighters.Photo: Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

The Oslo court sentenced the Norwegian-Pakistani woman to three and a half years in prison for “participating in a terrorist organisation” by taking care of her household and enabling her three husbands to fight.

“By travelling to an area controlled by IS in Syria… by moving in and living with her husbands, taking care of the children and various tasks at home, the defendant enabled her three husbands to actively participate in IS fighting,” judge Ingmar Nilsen said as he read out the verdict.

Being a housewife to three successive husbands did not render her a passive bystander, the judge said.

“On the contrary, she was a supporter who enabled the jihad, looked after her three husbands at home and raised the new generation of IS recruits,” he said.

The young woman, who admitted having “radical ideas” at the time, left for Syria in early 2013 to join an Islamist fighter, Bastian Vasquez, who was fighting the regime.

Although she did not take up arms herself, she was accused of having allowed her husbands to go fight while taking care of her two children and household chores.

The trial was the first prosecution in Norway of someone who had returned after joining IS.

“This is a special case,” prosecutor Geir Evanger acknowledged during the trial.

“This is the first time that, to put it bluntly, someone has been charged for being a wife and mother.”

The prosecution had called for a four-year sentence, while the defence had called for her acquittal and immediately appealed Tuesday’s verdict.

The woman’s lawyer, Nils Christian Nordhus, argued that his client had quickly wanted to leave Syria after being subjected to domestic violence.

She had also been a victim of human trafficking because she had been held against her will, he added.

But the judge stressed that she had participated in the organisation “knowingly” and of her own will.

The woman was repatriated to Norway in early 2020 on humanitarian grounds with her two children, including a young boy described as seriously ill.

At least four other Norwegian women and their children are being held in Kurdish-controlled camps in Syria.

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