Sale of CAF Leopard 1 Tanks to Jordan Falls Through

By: David Akin, Global News 

Canada has given up trying to find a buyer for its surplus army tanks after what appears to be a last ditch attempt to move them to Jordan fizzled out, Global News has learned.

Canada has about 50 surplus Leopard 1C2 battle tanks and 11 Leopard 1 armoured engineering vehicles left over from the original batch of about 127 Leopard 1s Canada purchased, beginning in 1978.

But the Canadian Army parked its Leopard 1s for good last year and has moved over completely to the more modern Leopard 2 tanks. The army has a fleet of 82 Leopard 2 battle tanks, spread throughout the country at CFB Edmonton, CFB Montreal, and CFB Gagetown near Fredericton, New Brunswick.

The surplus Leopard 1s are parked largely in the same locations.

Global News has learned there appears to have been a last-ditch attempt to move the Cold War-era tanks to Jordan.

On Feb. 20, 2018, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan received a briefing note titled “Provision of Leopard Tanks to JAF.” Defence industry sources believe “JAF” referred to “Jordan Armed Forces.”

The briefing note was referred to in another document obtained by Global News using federal access-to-information laws. Global News has not yet been able to obtain the full briefing note.

Canada had posted its notice of intent to sell the surplus Leopard 1 tanks in September 2015.

Neither Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan nor any officials with Jordan’s embassy in Canada would speak about the briefing note Sajjan received in February.

Other than Israel, Jordan is Canada’s most important ally in the Middle East and has received significant financial and other aid from Canada over decades.

If there was any interest in the Jordan option, it appears to have fizzled.

And now, the Department of National Defence has pretty much given up finding any buyer for the Cold War-era machines.

“No firm buyer was found and the Department is assessing alternate disposal options,” defence department spokesman Daniel Le Bouthillier said in a statement e-mailed to Global News Friday.

The list of countries to whom Canada would have been prepared to sell the tanks is relatively small. Canada would not have moved the tanks to a country where the presence of new squadrons of tanks could have been destabilizing for the region.

“The marketplace for us to sell and basically keep within most of our policies to not abet countries that are, shall we say, problematic, is pretty limited,” said Rob Huebert, a senior research fellow at the Centre for Military and Strategic Analysis at the University of Calgary.

Huebert said even selling them to Jordan might have been a problem for Israel, Canada’s other ally in the region, which might have been made a little nervous if its eastern neighbour became even a little stronger militarily.

A crew from the Lord Strathcona’s Horses deck out their Leopard tank with Canadian flags to mark Canada Day on Wednesday, July 1, 2009, at Canadian forward operating base Ma’sum Ghar, Afghanistan.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Colin Perkel

Other potential buyers might be human rights violators. The Trudeau government has already come under fire for honouring a commitment it inherited from the Harper government to allow the sale of armoured vehicles made in Canada to Saudi Arabia, a country which does not hold nearly the same respect for human rights that Canada does.

Le Bouthillier said 11 of the surplus tanks will be converted to artifacts, museum pieces that will be displayed outside armouries or other facilities to mark Canada’s military heritage.

No decisions have been made on what will happen to the rest of the surplus fleet. Several — perhaps all — could be used as targets for practicing gunners in the newer Leopard 2s.

“The last option would be to destroy the tanks,” Le Bouthillier said.

Female Canadian soldiers to train 1st all-female platoon in Jordanian army

By: Amanda Connolly, Global News 

Women from the Canadian military are heading to Jordan within the next six months to help train a new team of all-female soldiers in the Jordanian army.

The Jordanian Armed Forces Quick Reaction Force Female Engagement Team is a new platoon made up entirely of female soldiers trained for rapid response in situations where male soldiers cannot realistically engage with women encountered by the armed forces.

That could include conducting physical searches of a refugee woman at a border crossing or responding to incidents at refugee camps, according to a post published last month on the Maple Leaf,a website run by the Canadian Armed Forces that publishes material on the work of the military.

A spokesperson for the military confirmed that a team will deploy within the coming months but did not provide details, citing security concerns.

“A small team of Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members (all female) will be deployed to Jordan later this year to provide training support to the Jordanian Armed Forces (JAF) Quick Reaction Force Female Engagement Team,” wrote Cpt. Christopher Daniel, public affairs officer with the Canadian Joint Operations Command.

“Their identity, exact numbers, and exact location will not be disclosed at this time due to operational security considerations. Also, they will not conduct media engagements at this time.

Female engagement teams were first used by the American military during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

They started out largely as an ad-hoc effort, using women already deployed on existing operations to speak and work with local women.

READ MORE: Canadian Armed Forces pushes for more women: ‘I’m a woman in the military and I love it’

Strict cultural norms prevented male soldiers from talking to local women and as a result, opportunities were missed to both provide and gain information.

The first full-time American female engagement team arrived in Afghanistan in March 2010.

They were quickly followed by a British team in October 2010.

According to a 2011 NATO presentation on the teams, their duties ranged from providing information on enemy activity back to their units, communicating messages meant to educate and influence the public through the women in local communities, conducting security searches of women and conducting medical outreach.

Daniel did not say what kinds of training the Canadian female soldiers will provide.

He did, however, note the training will focus on how the Jordanian female soldiers can take the lead in situations where men might not be able.

“The specific types of training are not ready to be discussed yet as they are still in the planning stages,” he said.


“The training will be geared towards enabling the JAF Quick Reaction Force Female Engagement Team to respond in a culturally sensitive and respectful manner to security tasks, enhancing operational effectiveness.”

Jordan, as a country that is relatively stable and among the most progressive in the Middle East, has been a key recipient of Canadian humanitarian and security support in recent years, particularly since the rise of the so-called Islamic State terror group.

A Jordanian pilot was murdered by ISIS in 2015 and in 2016, the Canadian government announced Jordan would be among the core recipients of an anti-ISIS training and support package worth almost $2 billion.

The power vacuum caused by the Syrian civil war provided fertile ground for ISIS to metastasize as the country fell to pieces.

Roughly 1.4 million Syrian refugees fleeing the violence of both the civil war and the fight against ISIS have arrived in Jordan, which operates camps to house the refugees as they await resettlement through the United Nations Refugee Agency.

The camps have been cited as a major source of concern because of the potential they hold for radicalization, human trafficking and sexual assault of those living in them.

The deployment later this year will not be the first time Canadian soldiers will be training Jordanian counterparts.

Since roughly the end of 2016, a Canadian training team has been working with the Jordanian military to help with things like soldier skills, building infrastructure in areas of concern like the border with Syria, and providing equipment like wet weather gear and searchlights.

Another team is also working with soldiers in Lebanon.

It is not clear, however, how long the deployment of the female training unit might last.

The current mandate for Operation Impact, which is Canada’s mission against ISIS through which the training and support are conducted, expires in March 2019.

Canadian JTAC Training Jordanian Military

By: Rupert Pengelley - Jane's International Defence Review
A Canadian-led team has trained the first cohort of Jordanian joint terminal attack controllers
The Jordan Armed Forces is setting up its own training capabilities

The air-land integration capabilities of the Jordan Armed Forces (JAF) have received a boost from a Canadian-led multinational mobile training team (MTT). Follow-on plans are being developed for a Jordanian national joint terminal attack controller (JTAC) instructional capability.

A Canadian JTAC instructor in discussion with JAF JTAC trainees undergoing training at an air-ground weapons range in the Jordanian desert in early 2017. (Canadian Armed Forces)

Assembly of the MTT began in late 2016 under the auspices of the Canadian JTAC school at Gagetown. The latter was responding to a Jordanian request initially lodged with the US-led Joint Fire Support Executive Steering Committee for the in-country provision of a US JTAC memorandum of agreement (MOA)-accredited course for JTACs.

Speaking at the 2017 Omega Close Air Support conference in Bristol, in the United Kingdom, Warrant Officer Ken Power, a Gagetown-based JTAC Standards and Evaluation (STANEVAL) examiner, said the task had filtered down to his organisation only two months before the MTT was required to be on the ground.

The team core was provided by three Canadian JTAC instructors (JTAC-Is), supplemented by others from Australia, France, Poland, and the United States.

As lead country, Canada was responsible for undertaking an initial reconnaissance of the in-country facilities and ranges, plus assuring availability of airspace, air support, maps, and safety support. All basic course material was supplied by Canada, along with a mobile simulator.

Power noted that the latter was supplanted only a few days into the course by a VBS2-based Deployable Virtual Training Environment (DVTE) simulator loaned by the US Marine Corps (USMC). The MTT was able to derive considerable additional support in theatre from the USMC, which had an Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company (ANGLICO) detachment deployed in Jordan at the time.

The standard Canadian Forces JTAC course is spread over 10 weeks and, according to Power, is “heavy on homework”.

CAF to Train Jordanian Forces to Fight ISIL

In a brief statement released by the Department of National Defence, Canadians learned that the Canadian Armed Forces had deployed personnel to Jordan late last month as part of a “training assessment team” to research how Canada might train the Jordanian Armed Forces for the fight against ISIL.

Capt. Vincent Bouchard, a spokesman for Canadian Joint Operations Command Headquarters, confirmed that a “small group” of Canadian soldiers has arrived in Jordan with the goal of establishing periodic training programs, but said their identity and exact numbers cannot be disclosed for reasons of operational security.

“In support of the Government of Canada’s comprehensive strategy and commitment to international peace and stability, Op IMPACT’s refocused mission is intended to help set the conditions for the long-term success of regional partners, including through contributions to Building Partner Capacity in Jordan and Lebanon,” Bouchard said in an email, referring to Canada’s contribution to an international effort to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Bouchard did not say whether a similar group of Canadian Armed Forces members is currently operating in Lebanon.

“Building Partner Capacity in these two countries will promote increased security, contributing to regional security and stability,” Bouchard added.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau campaigned last year on a pledge to end Canada’s combat mission against ISIL. The government ended Canada’s airstrikes against the group in February, but Canadian planes are still conducting reconnaissance and refueling flights. And Canada’s revised mission against ISIL, also announced in February, involves the deployment of increased numbers of Canadian special operations trainers in northern Iraq, and the promise of intensified engagement with allies in the region such as Jordan and Lebanon.