Canada buys equipment for improving airstrikes
Military won’t say whether new gear has gone to Iraq
Canada’s military, including its special forces, is testing new equipment to improve how soldiers direct airstrikes — a purchase that comes as questions are being raised about whether Canadian fighter jets have killed Iraqi civilians.
The equipment allows for greater success during attacks with smart weapons, according to the military.
The gear, already used by the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan, includes a laptop system that can correlate the images of targets with existing geographical database imagery and then assign a latitude, longitude and elevation to any part of the target. The information is then passed on to the pilot, with the process taking less than 60 seconds, according to the U.S. navy, which developed the equipment.
The Canadian Forces confirmed it purchased the equipment to evaluate over a two-year period. It did not comment, however, on whether such systems have been sent to Iraq for Canadian troops there.
Canadian Forces officers have insisted since the bombing began last year that the attacks have not caused any civilian casualties.
But last week the military acknowledged that in January it was provided with information alleging civilians had been killed.
The Canadian Forces did not conduct an independent investigation into the allegations, Department of National Defence spokeswoman Ashley Lemire stated in an email.
But the U.S. Central Command headquarters, which is overseeing the war against ISIL, examined video and other images taken from the air. “The review uncovered no evidence of civilian casualties,” Lemire noted.
In cases where a location is under control of Islamic extremists, coalition officers are not able to visit the site to investigate allegations of civilian deaths.
The attack in question was on a position northwest of Mosul that was held by members of the Islamic State, or ISIL.
Last year, Prime Minister Stephen Harper committed CF-18 fighter aircraft and other military planes, along with 600 military personnel, to war against ISIL, which had seized large portions of Iraq. The commitment includes up to 69 special forces who are training Kurdish troops in northern Iraq but who have also directed airstrikes.
In April, defence industry representatives were briefed in Ottawa by the military that the new equipment was purchased from the U.S. government and included what was called a “precision strike suite” for special forces. The purchase also included “collateral damage estimate” gear but no explanation was provided about how that equipment functioned.
Collateral damage is a term for unintentional death, injury or damage during an attack by military forces.
On Monday, Harper acknowledged that the campaign against the Islamic State is not proceeding as well as he had hoped. The Conservative leader suggested that Canada would need to continue its involvement in the Iraq and Syrian wars over the long term.
“The intervention has had the effect of largely stopping the advance of ISIS, particularly in the north of Iraq and to some degree in other parts of Iraq and Syria, not maybe as much as we’d liked,” Harper said during a campaign stop.
“To protect our country, we are going to have to have a long and sustained strategy with our international partners.”
ISIL, (or ISIS, as it is also called) has retreated from some areas but still holds substantial amounts of territory in Iraq and Syria. Military officers, however, have portrayed a successful campaign that has dealt ISIL significant blows.
The Conservative government extended the mission against the Islamic State to run until next year. It also expanded Canada’s participation into attacking targets in Syria.
“To protect our country, we are going to have to have a long and sustained strategy.”
STEPHEN HARPER