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LONDON, February 8. /TASS/. Over 1,600 British troops will be dispatched to the Middle East to practice an "Iraq invasion-scale operation", British media reported.
"The logistics war game in Jordan aims to ensure the Army can still deploy a 30,000-strong force of tanks and troops to a crisis zone anywhere in the world, despite sharp defense cuts in the past five years," The Daily Telegraph said.
"Exercise Shamal Storm could be a dry run for one day having to send a large armored force of British troops to Eastern Europe if there was ever a Russian confrontation with NATO, sources said," the publication wrote.
"More than 300 military vehicles are being shipped to Jordan, where logistics, medical, intelligence and bomb disposal experts will practice supporting a massive British military expedition," the article said.
"Army sources said despite being held in Jordan, bordering Syria, the desert exercise was not a dress rehearsal for sending British troops against Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (Isil) militants," it said.
The publication quoted a source as saying: "This isn’t a counter-Isil exercise. If anything, this is much more about us being prepared to join the US in Ukraine than it is in Syria.".