Britain steps up military aid for Kurds waging war on jihadists Last month Britain provided 40 of the Browning heavy machineguns, equipped with two quick-change barrels to facilitate rapid combat and designed to be used in defensive positions. The men firing the weapons for the benefit of Mr Fallon's visit yesterday will now be deployed to the front lines to put their training into action. "We have had four training courses and this was the last course," Maj Gen Kamal said. After this we will take the weapons to the front line and see how effective they are against the Islamic State. One weapons technician working with the new British machineguns was effusive with his thanks, praising the Browning's "simplicity." But despite their reputation for valour, Kurdistan's military have been on the back foot against Isil, outgunned by the jihadists' vastly more modern weaponry, much of it seized from Iraq's US-supplied bases. "We are announcing today further training and further support, we are offering small unit training in infantry tactics, sharp shooting and in battlefield first aid," Mr Fallon said in Erbil. He added: "This is not the end of our support. We are determined to do what we can to help Kurdish forces here drive back Isil. Their fight is also our fight and I'm making it clear to the ministers and the PM, who I'll be seeing shortly, that we are determined to continue our support. Mr Fallon's announcement came on the day that Nechirvan Barzani, the Kurdish prime minister, declared that the Kurdish military was facing a serious weapons shortage. In addition to the training, Mr Fallon stressed that Britain was also providing Kurdistan with intelligence surveillance, transport of aid and ammunition and the air strikes, which had played a key role in keeping Isil away from Kurdish-controlled areas. British air strikes a month ago helped the Peshmerga retake the key Iraq-Syria border crossing at Rabia. Training will also be offered to the Iraqi national army, with an emphasis on countering the sort of roadside and other bombs that have caused so much damage to civilian areas of Baghdad and elsewhere in recent years. They have also been a deadly problem for the Peshmerga, particularly in the newly liberated Zumar region, where 22 Peshmerga were killed by improvised explosive devices and booby-traps left behind by Isil. Gen Jabar Yawwar, the secretary-general of the Peshmerga, said: "What we have received so far has helped to change the state of the Peshmerga from defence to offence and led to the liberation of a large area of Kurdistan which was taken by Isis." Mr Fallon earlier met Haidar al-Abadi, the new Iraqi prime minister, and Khaled al-Obaidi, the defence minister, who also asked for more assistance. "We are looking at those specific requests as well," he said. Meanwhile, Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has paid tribute to the work of journalists killed while reporting on the front line, saying they "light the lamp of truth" in a darkened world. Alluding to the war in Syria, he said: "We live in a world at the moment in which, in many areas, it feels as though the darkness is falling ever more severely on whole swathes and regions of the world, and in which the light of news very often seems to go out."