View from air suits boss in fight with ISIL
The air boss for Canada’s war against ISIL in Iraq and Syria has provided the first bird’s- eye view of what it is like to be part of a spy mission over such hostile territory.
During a recent seven- hour intelligence- gathering mission that took place mostly to the west and north of Baghdad, the CP- 140 Aurora crew with which Brig.- Gen. Daniel Constable flew observed an intense firefight between jihadist fighters and Iraqi security forces near the disputed town of Fallujah.
The aircraft also spent half an hour orbiting a group of men who were observed digging beside a road. Given Canada’s experience with improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan, suspicions were raised but quieted when word came through that the diggers were not Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant fighters planting those insidious homemade bombs.
They were friendly forces, and no action was taken against them.
The general was speaking during a wide- ranging discussion about the Royal Canadian Air Force’s war in Iraq and its new mission attacking the same enemy in Syria.
“We went from daylight to nighttime and during all the time that we were airborne there was not one moment when the crew were not busy,” the former CF- 18 Hornet pilot said.
“We have night vision goggles and when you use them everything lights up pretty brightly. You can see if anyone is firing on the ground. We saw surface-to-surface fire. Engagements were definitely happening between ISIL forces and ISF ( Iraqi Security Forces).”
One difference between Iraq and Syria is that Damascus had “built one of the most integrated air defence systems in the world in the western part of ( the Syrian) nation,” Constable said.
“From the middle to the eastern parts of the country, along the Euphrates River valley and up to ( the ISIL capital), Raqqa, and a little farther north towards Aleppo there are fewer air defences.
“The primary area where we intend to operate over Syria air defences are either non- existent or much less effective.”
That meant that “from an air power perspective the operations over Iraq and Syria are very similar,” he said.
More telling was that “in certain parts of Iraq we are able to closely integrate our operations with Iraqi security forces. Because ISF do not operate in Syria, we don’t have an equivalent we can integrate with.”
As the RCAF had just begun flying over Syria, aircrews were not yet “as integrated as the U. S. side is.” It was “going to take that much extra work on our part to do the intelligence gathering to discriminate between ISIL forces and civilians or other forces,” Constable said.
One of the RCAF’s duties when flying over Iraq or Syria is to immediately notify its findings to coalition joint- attack controllers. But the crew also spends these flights amassing data that is analyzed later by Canadian and coalition intelligence cells that pass their conclusions to battle planners who use it to help identify what enemy targets to strike.
“The way it works is that there are levels of analysis,” Constable said. “The lowest level might be what is happening right on board the aircraft. The operators themselves are, in effect, intelligence gatherers …”
The reports they prepared were used to build situational awareness for those working with friendly forces on the ground, he said. “If they see things that are of high interest, they will pass it on to the controllers in the area who dynamically task them to provide more information,” he said. “They use everyone on board, so they stick you at a window and tell you to look out for surface- toair missiles or tracers.”
The general agreed with the assessment of senior coalition commanders and Lt.- Gen. Jon Vance, who is responsible for all Canadian troops overseas, that the air war would not end soon. But he said progress was being made against ISIL.
“Because of air power they have had to modify their tactics,” he said. “They are far more cagey about how they operate. They have had to be creative about what vehicles they use. If they present an overt militarylike capability, they know they will get struck. It means they have a lack of freedom of movement. It limits how and when they can operate.
“From my perspective, the only way it ( the air campaign) can be measured is to concentrate on the amount of territory they are able to hold and control. What I have seen in five months is that they were advancing down two river valleys and getting very close to Baghdad and we have established a very definite halt to that” — and had reclaimed lost territory in parts of Iraq and Syria.
The recent flight was not the first time Constable had flown in Iraqi air space. He piloted a Royal Air Force Tornado F- 3 when he was flying on exchange “with the Brits in the no- fly zone in southern Iraq” between 1998 and 2001. During the war over Libya four years ago, Constable was chief of staff to Canadian Lt.- Gen. Charlie Bouchard, who directed that mission for NATO. And he and many of those serving with him are returning to Canada soon.