Three Georgian Soldiers ?Lightly? Injured in Iraq

Three Georgian servicemen in the 16th Mountain Battalion, which is deployed in Iraq as part of the coalition forces, were wounded in an attack on a U.S. military base in Iraq, the Georgian Defense Ministry reported on June 3.

?Otar Gabiashvili, Zurab Chachanidze and Gocha Zurabiani were slightly injured on June the 2,? Irakli Chikovani, spokesman for the Georgian Defense Ministry, told Civil Georgia.

Previously, in August, four Georgian peacekeepers were injured while conducting mine clearing operations in the Northern Iraqi city of Tikrit.
 
Georgia sent around 80 soldiers and military doctors to Iraq last August before increasing its military presence there in April.

159 soldiers and officers, all of whom were trained by U.S. military instructors within the framework of the Georgia Train-and-Equip Program (GTEP), were dispatched to Iraq on April 7.

The League for the People’s Protection, a newly created, non-governmental organization headed up by Irina Sarishvili-Chanturia (a former ally of ex-President Shevardnadze), has recently launched a petition for Georgian citizens to sign.  This petition would enable the organization to introduce a draft bill into parliment, recalling Georgian peacekeepers currently serving in Iraq.

President Saakashvili, in a bid to boost further cooperation with the United States, said on May 26 that Georgia would triple its number of troops in Iraq.