A team headed by Lieutenant Marius Stanescu, commander of a sub-unit from the 20th Infantry Battalion in cooperation with the Italian soldiers ended Sunday, December 11 a training course for the 100 Iraqi military instructors.

The activity was developed between September and December 2005 in four series of 25 soldiers in a camp near An Nassiriyah.

The course was in English and by the help of the Iraqi interprets and it was structured on five days theoretical and practical modules. The infantry people from Craiova, Romania, trained the Iraqi people in using and maintaining their armament, observing the security rules during the use of the armament. The Iraqi instructors had three firings with real ammunition.

The Iraqi troops from An Nassiriyah region were trained by the Romanian soldiers according to NATO standards, using the same methods and measures of security we are observing home Lieutenant Stanescu stated at the end of this activity.

Till the end of the mission the Black Scorpions will train 50 more instructors from a battalion representing the only operational Iraqi force in Dhi Qar province, under the Romanian soldiers responsibility.

MoND Press Office