TBILISI. Jan 9 (Interfax-AVN) - Georgia will send a task force to Iraq to join the international contingent there in February, Brigadier General Dmitry Lezhava, chief of the Defense Ministry Personnel Directorate, said on Friday.
"A reinforced task force numbering 217 servicemen will leave for Iraq to participate in the international peacekeeping mission on February 2," Lezhava told Interfax-Military News Agency.
The task force incorporates an army SOp team, an attached engineer unit and an attached medical unit, he said.
"All the servicemen who will be sent to Iraq are contracted. Among them are servicemen who have been trained by U.S. military instructors in the framework of the Pentagon's Train and Equip program," Lezhava noted.
According to him, the 70 servicemen of a Georgian composite company will return home from Iraq at the same time. The company consists of military doctors, sappers, and a platoon of the Kojori quick-response brigade.
The Georgian task force will be stationed on the outskirts of the town of Tikrit.
"Georgian Defense Minister David Tevzadze will visit Iraq soon to inspect the Georgian peacekeeping contingent," Lezhava said.