Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles announced tonight (Wednesday) that he decided to station additional military forces in the Middle East due to the war in Israel and the fear of regional escalation. According to him, this is a “contingency” meant to support any action by the Australian government if the security situation deteriorates.
According to Marles, three military planes would be stationed in the region, joining an existing Australian aircraft already present there. He also noted that the government would deploy a “significant contingent” of supporting troops which would work to extract Australian citizens if needed.”
“We’re not identifying where they will be, but the point of this is to provide support to Australian populations who are in the Middle East, if this gets worse, in essence,” he said. “It’s a volatile situation. We very much hope it doesn’t. We hope that this is confined to Israel and Gaza but, you know, we are all watching this, as the world is watching this, and we want to make sure that we’re prepared if matters get worse.”
