Torrejón Air Base receives the bulk of the Spanish military personnel evacuated from Iraq

The Minister for Defence, Margarita Robles, and the Chief of the Defense Staff, Teodoro López, with the evacuated military personnel upon their arrival at the Torrejón Base

200 Spanish military personnel, out of the 300 who were serving in Iraq, have arrived at Torrejón Air Base from Turkey.

Both the Minister for Defence, Margarita Robles, and the Chief of the Defence Staff, Teodoro López, greeted them on the tarmac, following a complex operation launched after the outbreak of the conflict in the Middle East.

The 205 personnel arrived aboard an A330 of the Spanish Air and Space Force, from Turkey's Incirlik Air Base. The vast majority of them belong to the 1st Legion Tercio 'Gran Capitán', based in Melilla, and the rest to other Army units, also located in this city, where another 21 members of the contingent are expected to arrive from Germany.

Their withdrawal is being carried out in full agreement with the countries of the Atlantic Alliance, participants in the two international missions: one against jihadism and the other to strengthen the defence of Iraq with a specific NATO organisation.

On the other hand, the 57 members of the Special Operations Task Group (SOTG) are being transferred from Incirlik (Turkey) to Alicante. This group is composed of personnel from the Special Naval Warfare Force, based in Cartagena, the Special Operations Command in Alicante, and the Parachute Sapper Squadron, located in Alcantarilla (Murcia).

Non official translation