Peace in Ulster could see Black Watch back in Iraq

THE Black Watch regiment is to be made available for action in Iraq again despite having already served two tours of duty in the country.

The regiment, which is facing amalgamation into the new Royal Regiment of Scotland, will be garrisoned in Northern Ireland from next April, when it completes its current posting as the army's training regiment at Warminster in southern England.

Also, new rules brought in after the IRA's renouncement of violence, mean that the regiment will then be available for deployment to overseas trouble spots, including Iraq and Afghanistan.

The announcement comes after The Scotsman revealed yesterday that two more Scottish regiments were heading for Iraq. The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards and the Highlanders will start to deploy in October and are expected to remain in Iraq for six months. The decision to replace existing forces in Iraq with a similar number of fresh troops was taken despite growing opposition to the war there, and in the face of threats by al-Qaeda to carry out further bomb attacks in the UK unless British forces are withdrawn.

Any suggestion that the Black Watch might return for a third tour of duty, would provoke an intense debate about the scale of the proposed cutbacks to the British infantry and raise new concerns about overstretch.

The Ministry of Defence yesterday confirmed that the Black Watch would move from Warminster to the Palace Barracks in Hollywood, Northern Ireland, in April next year.

A spokesman said: "They are one of the units coming over, now that normalisation has kicked in."

The MoD intends to reduce army numbers in Northern Ireland from the current 10,500 to 5,000 within two years, but it needs to replace regiments currently serving there.

The Black Watch will not take part in routine patrols in Northern Ireland, although they would be available to support the police if required.

The spokesman said: "The normalisation gun has been fired. The terrorist threat has been reduced to such a level that we can close various locations and redeploy troops."

Previously, British troops based in Northern Ireland were excluded from consideration for service elsewhere until the conclusion of their tours of duty.

But the spokesman said that the situation had now changed. "Any troops deployed here may be used by the police but their primary role will be deployment overseas," he said.

The Black Watch served with 7 Brigade - the Desert Rats - in Iraq during the war, making a name for itself again as a tough, armoured infantry regiment, which scored a number of notable successes against Iraqi forces and was instrumental in the capture of Basra.