Canada extends Iraq mission until end of June
OTTAWA • Canadian special forces have taken a more active role in the battle for Mosul, where weeks of bloody fighting have failed to dislodge the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
National Defence revealed the shift on Friday as the Liberal government announced it will extend the current mission in Iraq until the end of June.
The hope is the battle for Mosul will be over by then, at which point the government will have a better handle on the long-term needs in Iraq and change Canada’s contribution as required.
“There is nobody at this juncture that can really determine or predict exactly what will happen and how it would happen,” chief of defence staff Gen. Jonathan Vance told reporters.
“So this is a wise move that allows us to carry on.”
In the meantime, some of the nearly 200 Canadian special forces in northern Iraq have entered east Mosul and are now helping the Iraqi military free the western half of the city.
That represents a significant shift, as the Canadians had largely avoided Mosul and spent little time with the Iraqi military, working instead with Kurdish forces to the north and east.
Officials say work continues, with other Canadian soldiers tracking ISIL movement along Iraq’s border with Syria.
Those in Mosul continue to operate behind the front lines and in a supporting role, identifying ISIL forces, the officials added.
“The geography changed somewhat and the partners changed somewhat,” Vance said. “That is, we went from mentoring, training, advising and assisting Kurds to other Iraqi security forces.”
The current mission, launched last year, saw the Liberal government withdraw Canadian fighter jets from the U.S.-led bombing campaign against ISIL, but triple the number of special forces in northern Iraq.
It added a helicopter transport detachment and a 50-person intelligence unit and kept two surveillance planes and a refuelling aircraft in the region.
The mission had been set to expire on Friday.
The battle for Mosul is expected to take several more weeks, if not months, as Iraqi forces engage in house-to-house fighting to push the extremist group from the country’s secondlargest city.
Military commanders have warned that victory in Mosul won’t mark the end of ISIL in Iraq, as most expect it to abandon conventional military fighting in favour of such terror tactics as suicide bombings and IEDs.
That will require different training and support from the international community, which has been largely focused on helping Iraqi and Kurdish forces fight ISIL as a regular military force.
There are also concerns about Iraq’s political future, with several potential conflicts bubbling beneath the surface as the threat of ISIL appears to be receding. Those include competing territorial claims between the Kurds in northern Iraq and the central government in Baghdad and divisions between the country’s Sunni and Shia populations.
THE GEOGRAPHY CHANGED SOMEWHAT AND THE PARTNERS CHANGED.