ISIL 'about to be defeated': Australia's Major General says terrorist group is vulnerable

Islamic State terrorists have made a terrible mistake and will be defeated soon, the man leading Australia's Joint Task Force operations in the Middle East says.

Major General Craig Orme said ISIL had a "weak military capability" and that the group did not have magic powers to fight coalition forces, News Corp reports.

"As ISIL have tried to start acting like a state force, they play onto our ground and our expertise and they will get smacked," Major General Orme said from his base in the United Arab Emirates.

"They are about to be defeated."

Major General Orme's said while they had been successful to date, the radical extremists were "vulnerable" in northern Iraq where they are a long way from their source of strength in Syria.

"As soon as they behave like a conventional force, they're on our ground," he said.

"Up till now they've used shock action and terror to achieve their effect.

"If they're sitting in one spot, we'll go and bomb them and we're happy to do that.

"We have the intel surveillance and the reconnaissance. We will use that."

It comes as Australian forces conducted their first air strike in Iraq this week, bombing an ISIL facility.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott described Australia's mission in Iraq as "critical".

"ISIL is a death cult – it is not Islamic, it mocks the duties of legitimate states," he said.

"It is an affront to civilised people everywhere."