Canada Extends OP IMPACT Until June 2017

DND Press Release

The Government of Canada remains strongly committed to defeating Da’esh and responding to the needs of people who have been displaced or devastated by war in Iraq, Syria, and the region.

Today, Defence Minister Sajjan announced that the Government of Canada is extending Canada’s current military contribution to the fight against Da’esh until June 30, 2017.

This extension provides the Government of Canada the time required to assess the evolving nature of the fight while allowing the Canadian Armed Forces to maintain their important contributions to ongoing operations as a responsible coalition partner.

The scope and mission of Canada’s military contribution will remain the same over the next three months, with a few adjustments. As a result of recent successes in the campaign, some elements of the Canadian Special Operations Task Force have recently been operating in Eastern Mosul, providing advice and assistance to Iraqi Security Forces. There has been no change to their mandate or to the parameters of their mission. Canadian troops remain behind the forward line of troops, and are providing advice and assistance to Iraqi Forces.

Canada has implemented a comprehensive and integrated approach to do its part in defeating Da’esh, restore basic government services in Iraq, and enable citizens to return to their homes in newly-liberated areas.

Canadians will be regularly updated as this mission continues to evolve.

Vance: No end in sight in struggle to defeat ISIS

By Peter Zimonjic, Christina Lopes, CBC News Posted: Apr 04, 2016

Review on future of Canadian Forces is now in the hands of Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan

Canada's top general says there's no end in sight in the battle against ISIS, and Canadians should prepare for news of casualties now that Canada has stepped up its mission on the ground in Iraq and Syria.

Gen. Jonathan Vance made the comments in a wide-ranging interview with Rosemary Barton, host of CBC News Network's Power & Politics,when asked if victory against ISIS should be expected soon.

"I don't think it's in sight, I think we are thinking through the problem, we understand more and more and when you say ISIS, or ISIL or Daesh, it comes in many forms," Vance said.

Related:
Richard Fadden says Canada not at war with ISIS, but special powers needed

While the general said he was confident all the right steps were being taken to eventually defeat ISIS in Iraq, action also had to be taken socially and politically to oppose the organization.

"There is a wider effort in the counterterror world that needs to work at defeating this across the board, including countering the messaging seeking those root causes and trying to incentivize people to either leave the fight or not go in the first place," Vance said.

The general noted that all of the intelligence gathering needed prior to deploying new trainers on the ground had been done and he expected the rest of the Canadian trainers to be in theatre by the middle of summer.

Fighting vs. combat

The general said that even though Canada is in a train, advise and assist role, there is a risk of casualties during the mission.

"Canadians need to be prepared for the fact that there will be confrontation, there will be fighting, I am certain of it, there has been already," Vance said. "This represents an expansion of our mission on the ground, so it stands to reason that there will be fighting, and potential casualties as we face this mission."

Vance also had criticism for the way the mission has been debated, saying that it was not useful to argue over whether Operation Impact is a combat or a training mission when the risk to human life was so high.

"If you want to take the word fighting and make that synonymous with combat, fine by me," he said. "The intent of the mission, at the mission level, what's this mission for — it's to train, advise and assist a force."

"When you are using the rules of engagement that allow you to defend yourself and you are fighting, it's combat. But it's not a combat mission. If it was a combat mission we would be doing things very differently," Vance added.
Defence review is in minister's hands

Addressing the government's coming defence review, a sort of white paper on the future of the Canadian military, Vance said the review was done and in the hands of Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan.

The general said he is expecting "a good solid look at the future security environment, what are we facing in the world, and what does Canada want to be able to do in that very same world."

That road map would mean considering what kinds of equipment the Canadian Forces need in the future, what can be refurbished and what equipment was ready for the junkyard.

"There are decisions that we make to extend the life of equipment and that's entirely acceptable. Where I am able to offer advice in confidence to government about where there are limitations, in terms of what we can achieve, and that's also part of the process," he said.

Watch the full interview at CBC-News

Trudeau To Discuss Possibility Of Terrorists Using Nuclear Weapons

CP | By Alexander Panetta, The Canadian Press

WASHINGTON — Justin Trudeau will be among the world leaders gathering to contemplate the spine-tingling scenario of terrorists getting hold of nuclear weapons.

The prime minister will be in Washington this week at the last of the nuclear-safety summits organized by President Barack Obama.

The leaders will close out the two-day event with a session that discusses a hypothetical nuclear-terrorism scenario.

But that imaginary case study will be happening amid unnerving real-life events.

Belgium has just deployed soldiers to defend its nuclear facilities — after terrorist attacks in that country, and several incidents involving site personnel.

Analysts believe al-Qaida and Japan's Aum Shinrikyo have actively pursued nuclear weapons and they've begun expressing concern the so-called Islamic State might have similar designs.

"A terrorist attack with an improvised nuclear device would create political, economic, social, psychological and environmental havoc," said Laura Holgate, a White House aide who oversees efforts to limit the threat from weapons of mass destruction.

"The impact of a nuclear terrorist attack would be global, and the solutions must therefore also be global."

It's the fourth such summit and flows from a speech President Barack Obama gave in Prague soon after he took office.

He expressed hope for a world without nuclear weapons — which he conceded might not be achievable in his lifetime.

But the 2009 speech set shorter-term targets. One was securing the existing nuclear material around the world; he convened international leaders' meetings to make it a high-level priority.

The mixed results will be underscored by some glaring absences this week.

The Pakistani and Belgian leaders will be home dealing with the after-effects of terrorist attacks.

Putin to skip the summit

Russia's Vladimir Putin is skipping the summit — he'll be represented by observers. Russia says the U.S.-led process has run its course, and the issue should be left to the five international organizations working on it, including the UN, Interpol and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

As Obama leaves office, U.S. officials said the final summit communique will announce next steps leaders intend to take within those five organizations.

The Obama administration points to several successes these last few years:
Enough fissile material to make 130 nuclear weapons has been removed or downgraded from 50 facilities in 30 countries.

Fourteen countries and Taiwan have eliminated all nuclear material from their territory.

Twenty countries have increased co-operation to counter nuclear smuggling.

But 2,000 metric tons of weapons-usable material remain in civilian and military programs, says the White House.

It would require 25 kilograms of highly enriched uranium to produce a nuclear bomb, former State Department official Sharon Squassoni told a briefing at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Numerous incidents involving nuclear-plant-staff have been reported just in Belgium.

A guard at one facility was shot dead in his home last week — although authorities say it wasn't terrorism-related.

Security badges were just stripped from workers at a Belgian plant.

Video footage of an official at a Belgian facility was discovered in the home of a suspected militant linked to killers from the Nov. 13 Paris attacks.

Belgium's nuclear agency had its computer system hacked and briefly shut down this year.

Two employees at a plant near Brussels reportedly joined jihadists in Syria. One was killed, another arrested.

A new study cites three potential ways terrorists could launch a nuclear attack.

They could attack facilities — perhaps by hacking their computers, says the study for the Harvard Kennedy School.

They could explode a so-called dirty bomb involving radioactive waste, which might not kill anyone but, the study says, could cause billions in damage.

"The consequences of detonation of even a crude terrorist nuclear bomb would be severe, turning the heart of a modern city into a smoldering radioactive ruin..."

The hardest to pull off would be the most devastating: an actual nuclear weapon in the hands of terrorists.

"The consequences of detonation of even a crude terrorist nuclear bomb would be severe, turning the heart of a modern city into a smoldering radioactive ruin and sending reverberating economic and political aftershocks around the world," said the study.

Canada is deemed to have a better-than-average track record on nuclear safety.

Canada is third among 24 countries for the safety of its materials, according to an international non-profit organization that tracks nuclear-security trends.

It scored above-average in 18 different categories, like on-site protection and cyber security, according to the 2016 Nuclear Threat Initiative's security index.

But it was middle-of-the-pack in two categories: dispersal of quantities and sites, and in potential terrorist presence.

"We are committed to working with the international community to prevent nuclear terrorism — a very real social, political, economic, and environmental threat," Trudeau said in a statement.

Review of RCAF anti-ISIS Air Campaign

BY STEWART BELL AND MATTHEW FISHER
The National Post

It is kind of sad to see them go. I realize that for your operators who fly the CF-18s ... I think they are a little disappointed because I know if I was one of them at the squadron level and much younger, I would probably be feeling the same way. We are pounding these guys so hard, once the folks on the ground show up, what you have is a skeletal force in different locations. —Lt.-Gen. Charles Brown, Commander, Air Force component, U.S. Central Command

The strikes varied from something that was very intense to others that were more routine. There were a lot of moving parts that involved a lot of co-ordination. There has never been a dull moment. This was one of the best moments of my career.
— unnamed RCAF pilot

Mosul had been in the grip of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant for almost five months when Canadian CF-18 Hornet fighter jets began appearing over the northern city — the largest occupied by the armed extremists. The CF-18s conducted one of their first airstrikes near Mosul on Nov. 17, 2014, hitting an improvised explosives device warehouse. Over the 15 months that followed, Canadian warplanes would target the Mosul area more than anywhere else. As the CF-18s prepare to return home after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to pull them out of the fight against ISIL, a Postmedia analysis of the campaign shows that almost a third of the Canadian airstrikes targeted Mosul.

Up to 10 times a month, Canadian pilots flying out of a scorching hot airfield in Kuwait struck ISIL in and around Iraq’s second-largest city, targeting everything from bunkers and artillery to vehicles and car bomb factories.

While the political debate continues over Trudeau’s decision to ground the CF-18s in favour of more training, the analysis of Canadian Armed Forces airstrike data answers a more pragmatic question: what exactly did Canada’s fighter jets do?

Figures show that the six CF-18s conducted more than 230 airstrikes — all but five of them in Iraq. The vast majority targeted what the military described as fighting positions. The attacks were concentrated around Mosul, Sinjar and Ramadi.

The latter two cities have been retaken by Iraqi forces but Mosul remains the glittering prize. The once culturally rich city on the Tigris River has been ravaged by ISIL, which has imposed its militant brand of Islamic law through executions, child recruitment and ethnic cleansing.

Crosses at churches have been replaced with black ISIL flags, and the 1,700-year-old Christian population has fled after being ordered to convert to Islam. A buildup around the city has been underway for months, in anticipation of a planned ground assault.

“To retake Mosul on the ground there has to be months of preparation before that in terms of airstrikes and other forms of planning,” said Thomas Juneau, an associate professor at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. “It’s logical to target IS capabilities, IS defences, IS weapons depots in the Mosul area.”

Canada was not alone in its focus on Mosul — it was also the city most frequently struck by the coalition as a whole. “What our six (planes) have done has been a very small part of a big campaign,” said Randall Wakelam, an associate history professor at the Royal Military College of Canada.

The U.S.-led air coalition began to take shape in August 2014, after ISIL swept into Sinjar, committing one of the worst war crimes of the conflict. The videotaped beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley further cemented international resolve to defeat the Islamist extremists.

Canada joined the air mission in Oct. 2014, when Parliament voted to join the coalition. “We must do our part,” said then-prime minister Stephen Harper. But opposition parties stood against it, with Trudeau arguing that Canada should play a humanitarian role rather than “trying to whip out our CF-18s and show how big they are.”

The airstrikes aimed to halt ISIL’s expansion, shrink its territory and erode its capabilities, said Juneau, who called Canada’s participation “as political as military in the sense that it was a way to contribute to the legitimacy of overall operations.”

Within days of the vote, the CF18s left Cold Lake, Alta., for a base outside Kuwait City.

The first Canadian airstrike came on Nov. 2, west of Fallujah. The planes recorded six strikes that month and nine in December, but by January they were conducting almost daily bombing runs.

In Mosul, ISIL set fire to parts of the city to throw off reconnaissance aircraft, and mixed among civilians. “We follow laws of conflicts but they hold meetings in mosques, hospitals and schools,” said Col. Sean Boyle, who commanded Air Task Force Iraq between April and October 2015. “It makes it a much more complicated mission.”

The CF-18s sometimes flew missions alone and sometimes alongside coalition partners. Boyle recalled a Canadian-led attack on a training camp near Mosul by CF18s, Saudi F-15s and planes from four other nations. “We worked seamlessly. We were on the same page,” said Chief Warrant Officer John Short, who spent six months on the air campaign.

In Sinjar, where ISIL massacred, enslaved and expelled the Yazidi minority, CF-18s struck 31 times as Kurdish forces fought to retake the city. The central city of Ramadi was the third most commonly targeted with two dozen airstrikes; Iraqi forces recently took control of Ramadi, proclaiming it their first major victory against ISIL.

The targeting reflected the fact that “we are the air force for the various opposition forces,” said professor Stephen Saideman, the Paterson Chair in International Affairs at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs.

Although Parliament voted last March to extend the air mission into Syria, the CF-18s struck only five times in that country — twice in the ISIL stronghold of Raqqa. The most recent sortie into Syria was Jan. 27, the target an IED factory near Palmyra.

The airstrike data suggest that preventing IED attacks was a priority for the mission. The military reported striking dozens of IED factories, storage facilities and vehicles rigged with explosives — a favourite ISIL weapon.

The tempo of Canadian airstrikes peaked from May to July 2015, the data show. During that period, CF-18s conducted 69 strikes. The pace slowed during the federal election, but Trudeau did not ground the CF-18s immediately after his October federal election victory. Almost 60 airstrikes — about quarter of the total — occurred after he was sworn in.

The air campaign has been notable for the absence of confirmed civilian casualties. That may be partly due to the lack of an independent media presence on the ground, but the airstrike data also suggest pilots were cautious.

Eight out of 10 times, Canadian fighter jets returned from their sorties without having dropped any bombs. “I reviewed every single strike with pilots, sometimes frame by frame,” Boyle said. “To the best of our ability we can confirm that there are no civilian casualties.”

He said the guided munitions, which ranged from 500 to 2,000 pounds, were “very advanced” and accurate 99 per cent of the time — although “one or two times” the bombs were duds that struck without detonating.

By contrast, the Russians — who were accused this week of bombing a hospital in Syria — have shown less regard for civilians. “The Syrians are sometimes dropping bombs from helicopters,” Boyle said.

On Feb. 8, Trudeau announced he would end the air mission Feb. 22. Saying that “our efforts should better reflect what Canada is all about,” the prime minister said his government would instead focus on aid, diplomacy and training Iraqi forces.

On Wednesday, the military announced the mission had actually ended on Feb. 15. The Canadian Joint Operations Command Headquarters said this week the CF-18s had contributed to efforts to “halt and degrade” ISIL.

Canada’s final tally: 1,378 CF-18 sorties and 251 airstrikes on 267 ISIL fighting positions, 30 IED factories and storage facilities and other targets. ( The official totals vary from Postmedia’s because some of the military’s publicly released data record multiple airstrikes as a single strike.)

“To date as a result of coalition efforts ISIL can no longer manoeuvre freely in large numbers,” said spokesman Capt. Kirk Sullivan. The ISIL leadership and its economy have been targeted, and morale is declining, he said.

Among those returning home will be military lawyers who were part of the targeting process that ensured Canada’s rules of engagement were followed.

“The coalition has been able to stop the advances of ISIL, their freedom of movement and their supply chain,” said a CF-18 pilot who flew 41 missions over Iraq last year and is now back in Canada. “This was one of the best moments of my career.”

Statement by an named RCAF CF-18 pilot who took part in OP IMPACT:

I flew 41 combat missions over Iraq. The strikes varied from something that was very intense to others that were more routine. There were a lot of moving parts that involved a lot of co-ordination. The air space was quite busy. We either flew as Canadian elements of the coalition or as parts of a large coalition package. I have the pleasure of serving the government where and when asked. This is a huge responsibility and it is a pleasure to deploy. Operating the equipment itself was an inherent challenge in the Middle East. There were heat and other effects. (Preparing the aircraft to fly) is a rigorous process. I am confident there was no collateral damage before, during and after our missions. Checking for collateral damage is an important part of what we do together. It starts before the mission takes place. It is an extensive, rigorous process that does not end until the release of the weapon. To the best of my knowledge there were no problems with any of the airstrikes during the entire mission and specifically, during my deployment.

Dallaire: ISIS cannot be Defeated without strategy for Child Soldiers

Written by: Murray Brewster, The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — One of Canada's most famous former soldiers says the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant cannot be defeated without a strategy to deal with legions of child soldiers being indoctrinated into the violent, extremist cause.

Retired lieutenant-general — and former Liberal senator — Romeo Dallaire recently introduced a program of recruiting veterans to help train local security forces in the world's hot spots in anti-radicalization techniques and recovery efforts.

His goal is to have at least 200 former soldiers trained and ready to give instruction anywhere in the world and to that end last week received $175,000 in seed money from Wounded Warriors Canada to get a cadre of veterans trained in a pilot program.

But separately, he says, some of the training regime may be adopted as doctrine by the Canadian Army and possibly even delivered on the ground to Kurdish fighters by special forces.

Unlike Africa, where child soldiers have long been an issue, Dallaire says ISIL represents a more insidious problem because of the ruthless tactics the group employs and the fact the children are more isolated from the rest of the world.

A series of reports, including one from the United Nations, say children have been hauling weapons, acting as human shields and even becoming suicide bombers. Videos posted online show them watching beheadings as a part of their training to become jihadis.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said late last year that between January and August 2015, 1,100 children under the age of sixteen were recruited by the Islamic State — something Dallaire says cannot be allowed to continue.

"There is no doubt in my military mind that the sustainment of that conflict is based on the early recruitment and massive use of young people," said Dallaire, who has been meeting senior members of the Trudeau government, and the country's top military commander to persuade them to get behind the effort.

The Liberal government's retooled anti-ISIL strategy last week did not touch on the issue of child soldiers, despite a commitment of hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian and development aid.

Dallaire met officials at the White House and elsewhere last week in Washington, where the perception of the issue is evolving.

"The Americans are concerned because they have now finally captured the fact that child soldiers — and the use of children — in these conflicts is far more than a humanitarian problem," he said. "It is far more than a social-economic problem. It is a threat, and that is starting to sink in."

Since leaving the Senate, Dallaire, who encountered child soldiers in his ill-fated 1994 Rwanda peacekeeping mission, has focused on the issue through The Romeo Dallaire Child Soldier Initiative. His group estimates that 250,000 children have forced to fight in armed conflicts around the world.

He said he hopes Veterans Affairs will see the wisdom of further supporting the training program for ex-soldiers, which he describes as training the trainers.

It will give veterans a renewed sense of purpose and put to use some of the skills they've learned over a lifetime in uniform, he added.

Some of the instruction ex-soldiers can give to local security forces involves getting into classrooms in at-risk countries and preventing radicalization in the first place.

Women, Dallaire says, have an important role to play in the programs because in Muslim countries they are often the only ones who can talk with the mothers of child soldiers. They even have a role in disarming the young people, because research shows boys respond more positively to a female influence.

Walkom: Canada wise to be cautious about ever-widening ISIS War

Thomas Walkom published a very interesting article in today's Toronto Star, explaining why the Liberal government has been smart about taking its time outlining Canada`s future contribution to the ISIS campaign. He clearly explains how after 10+ years of war against terrorism, things have only gotten worse. 

Here is his article, 

By: Thomas Walkom, Toronto Star, National Affairs, Published on Thursday, February 04 2016

Slowly, inexorably, the war against the Islamic State is widening.

It has moved into Afghanistan, where both the U.S. and the Taliban are taking on ISIS militants.

It is moving into Libya. There, the U.S. is reportedly contemplating airstrikes. Italy is said to be looking at the eventual dispatch of ground troops.

In Iraq, the U.S. has already found itself enmeshed in ground combat — in spite of President Barack Obama’s stated aversion to the notion.

American special forces have also been sent into Syria.

In both countries, U.S. ground troops are there technically only to “advise and assist.” But the phrase is being interpreted broadly.

As U.S. Defence Secretary Ash Carter noted last month in a speech to troops, the U.S. plans to go after ISIS commanders and militants “killing or capturing them wherever we find them.”

Politically, Washington is putting pressure on its friends to up their commitments.

That was the message that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry delivered to his allied counterparts, including Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion, in Rome Tuesday.

In spite of American pressure, Canada’s new Liberal government is moving slowly. Conservative critics slam Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for failing to say what, if anything, he will do militarily in Iraq and Syria once he fulfils his promise to bring Canada’s six fighter jets home.

But perhaps the government is wise to take its time. War is serious business.

As Canadians found in Afghanistan, it’s easy to get enmeshed in war. It’s harder to get out.

To his credit, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan seems to recognize this. A veteran of the Afghan War, he knows what can happen when politicians send troops into conflict before sorting out the ramifications.

“I want to make sure we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past,” Sajjan told the Commons Monday.

“Because every single time we make these mistakes as political leaders, we send our men and women into harm’s way for no reason.”

For that frank assessment, the minister was pilloried. Conservative critic James Bezan suggested he was belittling Canada’s soldiers. Jason Kenney, another Conservative MP, mocked his syntax.

In fact, Sajjan was right. Mistakes were made in Afghanistan. As a soldier serving in that war, he was on the receiving end of them.

On Friday, he outlined some of these mistakes in a speech to a foreign policy conference.

The Canadian Press reports that Sajjan singled out the West’s failure to grasp the complex situation on the ground.

He also noted that much of the money earmarked for Afghan aid only fuelled corruption.

And he issued a general caution about the war against terror.

“Over the last 10 years, we need to do a really hard assessment,” he said. “Should we be patting ourselves on the back? And I’m talking from a security perspective around the world.

“I think we can say things have not gotten much better. Things have gotten worse.”

It’s hard to disagree with that conclusion. Things have gotten worse.

Afghanistan is still mired in war. In spite of Western training, Afghan troops have not taken up the slack in the fight against the Taliban. The Americans have delayed the withdrawal of their forces once. They may do so again.

What’s more, the Islamic State is now active in Afghanistan, fighting both the U.S. and the Taliban. According to the New York Times, U.S. forces have carried out a dozen operations against ISIS in Afghanistan during the last three weeks.

Libya is a mess. Western intervention to remove Moammar Gadhafi has left it fractured and without a coherent government. The U.S. and its allies are now belatedly trying to cobble together a Libyan government of national unity to prevent the country from becoming yet another ISIS stronghold.

Iraq is in crisis thanks in large part to the U.S. invasion of 2003. Syria is in crisis even though the U.S. didn’t invade. There are no easy answers.

Given all of this, it makes sense for Canada’s government to move carefully. It may bother the armchair warriors that Canada is not rushing into battle in Iraq and Syria. I doubt that it bothers the soldiers who might be sent there.

Thomas Walkom’s column appears Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday.

Canada in Iraq: RCAF Target 3 ISIS Positions near Mosul

The RCAF kicked off February with a busy day - targeting three separate ISIS positions. In a press release on its OP IMPACT webpage, DND announced that on 3 February 2016, while taking part in coalition operations in support of Iraqi security forces, two CF-18 Hornets successfully struck an ISIS fighting position, an ISIS ammunition cache, and an ISIS vehicle in three separate airstrikes conducted south of Mosul using precision guided munitions. 

No further details we announced. 

Canada in Iraq: Sajjan - Government will Vote on New Iraq Mission

By: Tim Naumetz, The Hill Times 

The Liberal government will bring a decision on renewing and changing Canada’s participation in the U.S.-led campaign against Islamic State combatants in Iraq to the House of Commons for a vote, says Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan.

“We promised to be an open and transparent government. We will be discussing it in Cabinet, and we will be bringing it to the House as well,” Mr. Sajjan (Vancouver South, B.C.) told The Hill Times Monday in response to questions as the March 30, 2016, expiry date approaches for a year-long extension to the Iraq mission by the previous Conservative government.

While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Que.) and his Cabinet have indicated the government intends to continue Canada’s role in a U.S.-led military campaign against ISIL, Mr. Trudeau as late as last week signaled the government will stick to a Liberal election promise that it would withdraw six Canadian CF-18 fighter bombers that have been part of air-strike operations along with the U.S. and 11 other countries.

Despite Mr. Sajjan’s statement, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair (Outremont, Que.) continued to criticize Mr. Trudeau and his government over the time that has passed with no change to Canada’s Iraq mission since the Liberals took office last Nov. 4.

Air strikes by Canada's CF-18s have continued, while operations by Canadian Special Forces soldiers attached to Iraqi security forces also continue.

"Mr. Trudeau made a crystal clear commitment to withdraw Canada's CF-18s from the bombing mission. Instead of making good on that promise, the bombings increased and then his Defence minister mused about extending the mission without consulting with Parliament,” Mr. Mulcair said Monday.

“The Liberal government must bring any change to the mission before Parliament and finally come clean with their plans for our military. It is unacceptable to have this much confusion when it comes to our troops in combat,” he said through his top media aide, George Smith.

The motion passed on March 30, 2015 stated that the Commons supported the previous Conservative government’s decision to extend the mission, which the Conservatives first approved for a six-month period in October, 2014, to “a date not beyond March 30, 2016.”

The motion also stated that the House of Commons “continues to support the government's decision to contribute Canadian military assets to the fight against ISIL, and terrorists aligned with ISIL, including air strike capability with authorisation to conduct airstrikes in Iraq and Syria."

Canadian CF-18s took part in only four air strikes against ISIL targets in Syria up to last July and have not conducted air strikes in Syria since then, but the wording of the March 30, 2015, motion suggests withdrawal of the CF-18s by this coming March 30 would have to be included in a new motion, as well as continuance of Canadian refuelling, surveillance and cargo aircraft in the mission.

As well, considering the Liberal commitment to Parliamentary reform and consultation with Parliament, any increase in the number of Canadian Special Operations Regiment soldiers as advisers and trainers for Kurdish Peshmerga Iraqi security forces would likely also be included in the motion.

Mr. Trudeau reiterated the Liberal CF-18 withdrawal plans at the World Economy Forum summit in Davos, Switzerland, last week.

“We are committed to withdrawing our six CF-18 fighter jets and looking for another way to continue in the efforts against these global terrorists,” he said.

Relatives of six Canadians who were killed in an Al Qaeda terrorist attack in Burkina Faso last week—all from Quebec and four from the same family—called on the government to maintain Canada’s role in the bombing campaigns.

Mr. Sajjan suggested Monday the Canadian mission could continue as it is until the March 30 deadline, as Mr. Trudeau and his Cabinet map out the new Canadian contribution.

“We do need to look at how we're going to evolve in terms of the next, you know, what the next year may look like or even beyond that, and this is where it's extremely important,” Mr. Sajjan told reporters outside the Commons after Question Period.

He said Canada’s new mission has to be “synchronized” approach involving several departments. “The decision will be coming soon,” he said.

tnaumetz@hilltimes.com
The Hill Times

Is the Answer to ISIS to Create Sunnistan?

Published by the CDA Institute, Blogger - David Law

CDA Institute Security & Defence Blogger David Law, a Senior Associate/​Fellow at the Security Governance Group/​Centre for Security Governance in Kitchener, comments on proposals of creating a Sunni state (Sunnistan).

On 25 November 2015, John Bolton, US representative to the UN from 2005–2006, neo-​con par excellence, published a piece in the New York Times that advocated the creation of a Sunni state in those areas presently occupied by the Islamic State.

There is very little that Mr. Bolton and I share politically but on the issue of the future of this region, we have some common ground. I share his concern that Iraq and Syria are Humpty-​Dumpty states that may not be possible to put back together again. The former ambassador argues for the creation of a Sunnistan once IS has been defeated. My approach would be to consider its creation as part of the process of defeating IS.

I am generally not in favour of separating communities and splitting states. The world now counts over 200 statal actors, roughly six times more than at the beginning of World War I. This has allowed many communities, previously cosseted in structures that they had not become part of by choice, to establish their own jurisdictions – and bravo for that that. But we may be close to a point where the benefits to be gained by creating new states designed to resolve identity conflicts are becoming counterproductive. Working with 200-​odd states in the international community is difficult enough. Pretty well all of them have significant minorities in their midst. It probably makes more sense to think more creatively about how to deal more effectively with the relationships among states rather than creating new ones.

That said, there come times when it becomes necessary to accept that a state has outlived its usefulness and needs to make way for a new statal structure. For example, while the disappearance of Yugoslavia was a tragic event in a great many respects, there was an objective need, for example, to end Serbia’s control over Kosovo. The Belgrade of the erstwhile Serbian leader Milosevic wanted to maintain its domination over the territory of Kosovo, lands that had been in Serb hands for centuries, but it did not want to accept the Albanian population residing there as people deserving equal treatment with their Serb co-​citizens.

The situation in Iraq and Syria is not dissimilar. Syria’s President Assad has relinquished any right to continue to preside over his country. He has lost the allegiance of most of its many ethnic and religious entities. He has made it crystal clear through four years of civil war and over a quarter of a million deaths that his prime objective is to maintain the grip of the Alawite community on the Syrian system of governance. This is what unleashed the peaceful protests in the first place, to which he responded with unbridled force. So, he expects that a minority of some 15 percent of the population can continue to prevail over the vast majority of the rest? There are, of course, minority national and religious communities in Syria that have traditionally enjoyed the protection of the Alawi-​dominated government but the overall arithmetic behind the Assad approach is obscene.

The situation in Iraq needs nuance. After decades of dominance of the Sunni minority over the country’s Kurds and Shiites, the former enjoy a more or less functioning administration of their own while the latter preside over the central government of Iraq. Shiite-​dominated Bagdad is politically schizophrenic, on the one hand sucking up to Tehran, using the Shiite militias it sponsors to bolster its dominance, on the other, recently bending to US pressure to accept policies that have the potential of giving Sunnis a renewed stake in the country.

The situation in the currently-​embattled Ramadi is instructive. This is the main city of Iraq’s Anbar province. Fewer than a hundred kilometres from Baghdad, Ramadi is 90 percent Sunni, the historical heartland of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and hence that part of Iraq most viscerally opposed to the American intervention. The Iraqi army, in a joint effort with local Sunni tribesmen and US aerial firepower, seems now to have succeeded in dislodging IS from the city. But note that in this battle Baghdad agreed not to employ Shiite militias supported by Iran in the campaign, in response to Washington’s concern that their presence would scuttlebutt the effort to roll back the IS.

Assuming that the battle for Ramadi has been won, the decisive question now is whether Baghdad will allow the local Sunni actors that have opposed IS to assume responsibility for the city’s administration. Whether it does or not will send signals across that large part of Sunni Iraq presently under IS occupation.

The bottom line is that Iraq, if it is to survive, needs to move towards a federalist arrangement among its Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds. I fear, however, that the victory in Ramadi is too little, too late. For Iraq, the train may have already left the station.

So, my take is that in certain respects John Bolton is spot on. Syria and Iraq may very well be done states. Have a look at the current situation in Afghanistan and see how the Taliban has made major inroads as the NATO coalition reduced its responsibilities and cut back on its fighting forces. After almost fifteen years of engagement in this beleaguered country, the Western project has been declared bankrupt by events on the ground. The budget for this has been over seven hundred billion USD for the United States alone. To expect one can do better with many fewer resources in Syria and Iraq does not convince.

The West has to do a serious rethink of its role in Syria and Iraq. One needs to find convincing arguments for keeping intact structures whose borders were drawn about a hundred years ago on the back of an envelope by the British and French diplomats, Sykes and Picot. This did not necessarily condemn these states from the outset but their failure to develop adequate power-​sharing arrangements for their constituent parts in the interim and the colossal violence this has now engendered may well spell their downfall.

A further consideration is that if the West were to come out in favour of the creation of a Sunnistan, it might just put a fox among the pigeons. The fox would be the idea of an alternative to the IS-​championed notion of an international caliphate that would solidify Sunni supremacy not only over other Muslims but over also those of other faiths. The pigeons would be the different groupings that populate the areas currently under IS control. These are essentially three: former Baathists, Sunni tribal groups and the tens of thousands of diaspora jihadists that have joined the ranks of the would-​be world caliphate. While some of the Baathists and tribalists may have now accepted the IS discourse, I expect that a broad majority of them just want to step out from under the Alawite domination perpetuated by Damascus or the Shiite one championed by Iraq. They do not need an international caliphate to do so.

Assuming this analysis is correct, where do we go from here? If Damascus and Bagdad fail to adopt formulae giving their main minority communities an effective share of power, the West should profess support for a reordering of statal realities in the region. It should commit itself to helping the new states that would likely emerge – Sunnistan, one or more Kurdish states, an Alawi-​dominated entity on the future former Syrian soil – to assume their sovereignty with as much grace and justice as can be assumed under the conditions prevailing in this part of the world, supporting consensual formation of borders, protection for minorities, universal suffrage, and all those other good things that the West has been historically identified with. This would not be a simple or short or easy struggle. But it could be the least painful one.

David Law, a former Head of the NATO Policy Planning Unit, is currently a Senior Associate with the Kitchener-​based Security Governance Group, and a Senior Fellow with its sister organization, the Centre for Security Governance. (Image courtesy of Daily Mail.)

Canada in Iraq: RCAF Target ISIS Position near Tikrit

In a press release on it's OP IMPACT webpage, DND announced that, On 14 January 2016, while taking part in coalition operations in support of Iraqi security forces, two CF-18 Hornets successfully struck an ISIL fighting position northeast of Tikrit using precision guided munitions.

Canada in Iraq: RCAF Airstrike near Ramadi

In a press release on it's OP IMPACT webpage, DND announced that on 8 January 2016, while taking part in coalition airstrikes in support of Iraqi security forces operations to clear ISIS from Ramadi, two CF-18 Hornets successfully struck an ISIS fighting position southeast of Ramadi using precision guided munitions.

Canada in Iraq: RCAF Strikes 3 ISIS Positions Near Al-Baghdadi

In a press release on it's OP IMPACT webpage, DND announced that on 3 January 2016, while taking part in coalition operations in support of Iraqi security forces, two CF-18 Hornets successfully struck an ISIS rocket emplacement in the vicinity of Al-Baghdadi with precision guided munitions.

Also on 3 January 2016, while taking part in coalition operations in support of Iraqi security forces, two CF-18 Hornets successfully struck two ISIS vehicle-borne IEDs north-west of Al-Baghdadi with precision guided munitions.

Canada in Iraq: RCAF Targets 4 ISIS Positions in Single Day

Released on it's OP IMPACT webpage, the RCAF conducted the following airstrikes on January 2, 2016:

On 2 January 2016, while taking part in coalition operations in support of Iraqi security forces, two CF-18 Hornets successfully struck two ISIS fighting positions south west of Sinjar, using precision guided munitions.

On 2 January 2016, while taking part in coalition operations in support of Iraqi security forces, two CF-18 Hornets successfully struck an ISIS compound near Bartallah, (east of Mosul), using precision guided munitions.

On 2 January 2016, while taking part in coalition operations in support of Iraqi security forces, two CF-18 Hornets successfully struck an ISIS compound near Kudilah, (southeast of Mosul), using precision guided munitions.

Cadets from the USAF Academy tour an RCAF CF-18 at Camp VINCENT , Kuwait. Photo: CAF Combat Camera - June 2015

Canada in Iraq: 6 RCAF Airstrikes over Christmas Holidays

After a brief hiatus over the holidays, I should be posting more regular CAF News moving forward into the new year.

In brief press releases on its OP IMPACT webpage, DND announced that on the 23rd of December 2015, while taking part in coalition airstrikes in support of Iraqi security forces’ offensive operations to clear ISIS from Ramadi, two CF-18 Hornets successfully struck an ISIS vehicle-borne Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in the vicinity of Ramadi using precision guided munitions. The RCAF and coalition attacks helped Iraqi forces retake Ramadi nearly a year after it fell to ISIS.

Then on the 24th of December 2015, while taking part in coalition operations in support of Iraqi security forces, two CF-18 Hornets successfully struck an ISIS fighting position east of Mosul using precision guided munitions. Also on the 24th, two CF-18 Hornets successfully struck two ISIS fighting positions west of Tal Afar using precision guided munitions.

A U.S. military official in Iraq says that coalition airstrikes killed 10 Islamic State leaders over the past month, including several linked to the Paris attacks or other plots against the West.

U.S. Army Col. Steve Warren says they were killed mainly by drone strikes in Iraq and Syria. He offered few details, but said at least two of those killed were linked to the Paris attacks. He says one was directly tied to those who planned the violence in Paris and was actively planning other assaults against the West. Most appeared to be mid-level leaders.

Warren says that one of the others killed was from Bangladesh but spent time in Britain and was a hacker for the Islamic State group and co-ordinated anti-surveillance technology.

On Christmas day, December 25, while taking part in coalition operations in support of Iraqi security forces, two CF-18 Hornets successfully struck an ISIS fighting position west of Makhmur using precision guided munitions.

The most recent involvement by the RCAF was on December 27,  2015, while taking part in coalition operations in support of Iraqi security forces, two CF-18 Hornets successfully struck an ISIS fighting positions south east of Sinjar using precision guided munitions.

Den Tandt: Why Trudeau should keep CF-18’s in the fight against ISIS

Michael Den Tandt outlines here a great argument for why the Liberal Majority should reconsider its withdrawal of RCAF CF-18s from the US-led coalition against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

An RCAF CF-18 flies over Iraq during a sortie on OP IMPACT. November 7, 2015. Photo: CAF Combat Camera, OP IMPACT, DND 

By: Michael Den Tandt, National Post 

There is a straightforward way for the Liberal government to get beyond the tangle in which it now finds itself over its pledge to pull Canada’s CF-18 fighters from the air war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. That would be to break its promise, make a U-turn and keep them in the fight. This is not only the responsible thing to do; it is the politically smart thing to do, given the other options.

Since the Oct. 19 federal election, the debate has raged. Throughout the back and forth, the claims and counterclaims, Royal Canadian Air Force jets have continued to contribute to the U.S.-led campaign by, yes, dropping bombs on enemy targets. Late last week, Canadian forces took part in a battle that involved CF-18s and special forces ground troops.

In a year-end interview with the Huffington Post, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan committed to withdrawing the fighters within six months, though a parliamentary resolution calls for the air-combat mission to end in March. The reason for not pulling out immediately, Sajjan has said, is that the government does not wish to contribute to a loss of capacity for its allies. Translation: The CF-18s are making a valuable contribution to the overall effort, albeit a small one. If this were not the case, withdrawing them would make no difference to anyone and would have occurred already.

The arguments for keeping the CF-18s in the fight, or not, fall loosely into three groupings: tactical/strategic, philosophical/moral and political. In every case, based on a careful and fair-minded reading of the facts, the case for keeping the previous Conservative government’s policy in place is unassailable.

In military terms, simply put, the Liberals in crafting their policy and sticking to it doggedly have misunderstood the role of aerial combat in modern warfare. Repeatedly, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has spoken dismissively of “dropping bombs,” as though it’s indiscriminate carpet-bombing of residential areas, like something out of the Second World War or Vietnam.

That assumption is false. In this campaign, which even now is modest in scope compared with the rate of missions flown in both Gulf wars and in Yugoslavia in the late 1990s, air power is being used precisely by the allies to degrade and destroy ISIL’s capabilities and allow allied local ground troops to take back territory more easily.

To dismiss the air war as indiscriminate “combat” is shallow in the extreme. On the contrary, the aerial campaign is arguably the last, best hope for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization powers to avoid sending in their own ground troops in large numbers. It is an alternative to a ground war – not a necessary prelude to one. U.S. President Barack Obama, a lifelong pacifist, and French President François Hollande, a socialist, are not war hawks. They are advancing this strategy because they can see no other way of defeating ISIL, short of all-out war.

The philosophical and moral arguments essentially resolve into a discussion of failed foreign involvements in various Middle Eastern and South Asian wars extending centuries back. Many Canadians wonder what was achieved by 12 years of war in Afghanistan. The quagmire in Iraq and Syria, it is often noted, has its roots in president George W. Bush’s failed U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Gen. Colin Powell’s famous admonition, “if you break it, you own it,” went unheeded. The result has been one catastrophe after another, one of which was the rise of al-Qaida in Iraq, which metastasized into ISIL. Yes. Point understood and accepted.


The fact remains that 2015 is not 2003. In 2003, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, beyond being an annoying blowhard and a demented tyrant to his people, threatened no one beyond Iraq’s borders. He had no weapons of mass destruction. Had he had them, he had no will to use them.

ISIL’s self-anointed caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is no Saddam. He’s something much worse. He and his jihadists believe — and this is not opinion, but fact, available to anyone with stomach enough to do the research — that they are warriors for God on a sacred mission to bring about the end of the world. They believe that in the interim, it is their sacred obligation to wipe out all other iterations of Islam, re-introduce slavery and extend their caliphate worldwide. And they pose, as has been demonstrated repeatedly now, a clear and present danger to every pluralistic society, including Canada’s. Pearsonian Liberalism would opt for engagement.

That leaves the political argument, which is this: As long as withdrawing the CF-18s remains government policy, because it is incoherent, it will be a thorn in its side and a fundraising tool for the Conservatives. A flip-flop would cause short-term bruising. Longer term, it would validate the Liberals’ pledge to base policy on evidence, not ideology. And it would help establish them as responsible managers, rather than wishful thinkers.

National Post

Twitter.com/mdentandt

Canada in Iraq: RCAF Hits 3 ISIS Fighting Positions

In a press release on its OP IMPACT webpage, DND announced that on 18 December 2015, while taking part in coalition operations in support of Iraqi security forces, two CF-18 Hornets successfully struck three ISIS fighting positions northwest of Mosul, Iraq, using precision guided munitions

Canada in Iraq: Special Forces Involved in Firefight with ISIS near Mosul

By David Pugliese, Ottawa Citizen, 

Canadian special forces and Kurdish troops have fought off a significant Islamic State ground offensive in northern Iraq, a Canadian general revealed Thursday night.

Major-Gen. Charles Lamarre said Islamic State forces launched a “fairly concentrated and well co-ordinated attack” on Wednesday on the Kurdish lines where Canadian special forces are located.

The fighting went throughout the night and Kurdish troops, backed by the Canadians, were able to push back the Islamic State attackers by Thursday.

There were no Canadian casualties, said Lamarre, director of staff for the Canadian Forces Strategic Joint Staff. A number of Kurdish soldiers were killed or wounded.

Kurdish officials said around 70 militants with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant — or ISIL — were killed during the battles in at least five locations along the Kurdish lines, north and east of Mosul.

Two CF-18 fighter jets were also involved in helping push back the offensive. U.S., British and French fighter jets also took part.

Canadian special forces soldiers have previously called in airstrikes on ISIL targets, and its snipers have shot and killed ISIL gunmen. But this was the most significant military action the Canadians have yet faced in this mission.

Asked how many ISIL troops were involved in the attack, Lamarre responded: “A significant number. I would say in the hundreds.”

He noted that ISIL suicide bombers driving in vehicles also took part in the attack.

The offensive took the Kurds and Canadians by surprise and ISIL was able to make multiple excursions into the Kurdish areas.

Lamarre said Canadian special forces were involved in the fighting “right from the word go.”

During a counter-offensive led by the Kurds Thursday morning the Canadians provided support fire, he said. “They (the Kurds) came under effective fire and our guys were close enough and able to respond with fire onto those ISIL positions,” Lamarre noted.

Canada has around 69 special-forces soldiers in northern Iraq training Kurdish troops. The Canadian task group there has been made up of soldiers from the Ottawa-based Joint Task Force 2 counter-terrorism unit as well as the Canadian Special Operations Regiment from Petawawa.

The use of the CF-18s in battling back the ISIL offensive will likely fuel further debate about the Liberal government’s plan to withdraw the fighter jets from the mission.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said his government intends to keep that election promise and instead beef up the number of Canadian training troops involved in the Iraq mission. No date has yet been set for the withdrawal of the CF-18s and Lamarre said the military is still awaiting orders from the government on that.

Lamarre noted that the Canadians were in an advisory role and that “the principal combatants were the Kurdish security forces.”

The emphasis on the importance of ground operations dovetails with the Liberal government’s decision to concentrate on training Iraqi security forces.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan released a statement Thursday night pointing out the value of the ground mission and the support given to the Kurdish security forces or KSF.

“Although the attackers were able briefly to penetrate KSF defensive positions, our forces played a role in advising and assisting the KSF to successfully launch a counter attack and re-establish defensive lines,” Sajjan said. “These actions illustrate the valuable contribution our forces are making to the KSF and the fight against ISIL. All Canadians can rightfully take pride in the professionalism of our members and the work of the coalition.”

Lamarre noted several times that the ability of the Kurdish troops to push back ISIL forces was “impressive.”

But he also acknowledged that the multi-pronged offensive was unusual for ISIL in the area. “It was a departure from what they have done in the past,” he added.

“There was an element of surprise that ISIL was able to bring to it.”

Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion has said he expects the withdrawal of the CF-18s will happen “within weeks not months,” but the government first wants to work out details of a beefed-up Canadian training mission to Iraq before announcing the date the planes will return home.

Canadian CF-18s have dropped more than 500 bombs over the past year on ISIL targets, according to the Canadian military.

The Canadian Forces entered the war in October 2014 and dropped its first bombs on Nov. 2, 2014.

Despite a broad-based coalition of nations, the U.S. military is still conducting most of the bombing raids. The U.S. air force has used more than 20,000 bombs and missiles during the war.

Conservative MP Kellie Leitch, however, has accused the Liberal government of putting the Canadian military in the position “where they would be seen on the world stage as cowards.”

U.S. officials, however, have not objected to the withdrawal of the CF-18s as long as Canada continues to play a role in the war.

It has asked Canada to leave its refuelling aircraft as well as the two surveillance planes currently involved in the mission. Canadian military sources told the Citizen that the Liberal government is leaning towards agreeing to that request.

Also under consideration is Canadian help in developing a Kurdish special forces unit.

Dion has also suggested that Canada could join Italy in providing police trainers to Iraq.

There are more than 600 Canadian military personnel involved in the Iraq mission. Those include the special forces troops as well as air crew and staff in Kuwait who are supporting and operating six CF-18 fighter jets, two CP-140 Aurora reconnaissance aircraft and a CC-150 Polaris in-air refuelling tanker.

Dion: Allies Ask Canada to Keep Polaris and Aurora in Fight Against ISIS

By: Michelle Zilio, CTV News

Canada is being asked by allies to keep its military refuelling aircraft and surveillance planes in the fight against the Islamic State, according to Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion.

“It has been requested from allies to consider to continue to do that,” said Dion in an interview with CTV’s Question Period.

Dion did not go so far as to say whether the government has officially decided to keep its CC-150 Polaris refuelling tanker and its CP-140 Aurora reconnaissance aircraft running missions in Iraq and Syria. He did, however, stand by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s commitment to withdraw Canada’s CF-18 fighter jets from the U.S.-led bombing mission against the terrorist group.

Trudeau has also said Canada will send more trainers to Iraq to join the 69 Special Forces members already stationed there, but hasn’t indicated exactly how many more will go. Dion said that in addition to training the Kurdish military, Canada is also being asked to train local police officers in Iraq.

“We are at the time now where we free a village or a town or a city, the first thing you need to do is professional police that will be perceived by the population as a protection for them, not as a threat,” said Dion. “The Italians are involved in it. They are asking us to be part of it. It’s something we will consider.”

Dion said the Liberals would also like Canada to be involved in the rebuilding of institutions in Iraq, including the justice system and public service.

While Dion credited Canadian Forces members for having done a “great job” in the ongoing mission against ISIS, he said Canada can contribute in a way that will better complement the work of its allies.

A final decision regarding Canada’s involvement in the ISIS mission will come in a “matter of weeks,” according to Dion. He said the government is busy consulting with its allies to “identify the best way for Canada to be helpful.”

Dion also spoke about another commitment high on the Liberal government’s radar next year – the resettlement of tens of thousands of Syrian refugees in Canada. He said the government is taking many security precautions, including sharing information about the incoming Syrian refugees with the U.S. via databases.

Dion, who has been in his ministerial job for just over a month, also previewed the government’s plans for two of its more challenging relationships – with Iran and Russia - and its most important relationship, with our neighbours to the south.

Iran

• The Liberals plan to re-engage with Iran, more than four years after the previous Conservative government severed relations with the Islamic republic. However, Dion did not say when exactly this will happen.

• According to Dion, the re-engagement will be done “step by step,” with an emphasis on the protection of human rights in Iran.

• Dion emphasized the need for diplomatic relations with Iran, especially for the sake of Canada’s allies, including Israel. Those diplomatic efforts will require the re-opening of the embassy in Tehran, a proposal the Conservative opposition is concerned about.

• “I would urge the government to be cautious about this, to not jump back into Tehran with a diplomatic mission at this particular juncture, to await Iran’s actions and see if they match their words,” Conservative foreign affairs critic Tony Clement told Question Period.

Russia

• Dion said the government will pressure Russia to carefully consider its actions in Syria, adding that the Russians will “be part of a solution in Syria.” He called on the Russians to focus their fight on ISIS, rather than the Syrian opposition.

U.S.

• Dion said U.S. President Barack Obama’s plans to hold a state dinner for Trudeau -- the first for a Canadian PM since 1997 -- shows the global interest in the new prime minister. But in formal talks with the U.S., the Dion said Canadians can expect Trudeau to push Obama on a North American climate change accord, and continue joint efforts on climate change and clean energy.

Canada in Iraq: RCAF Strike ISIS fighting position north of Al Kuwayr

In an press release on it's OP IMPACT webpage, DND announced that, on 11 December 2015, while taking part in coalition operations in support of Iraqi security forces, two CF-18 Hornets successfully struck an ISIS fighting position north of Al Kuwayr using precision guided munitions.

Opposition Motion Defeated: RCAF CF-18 Mission To End

Yesterday, member of the Official Opposition, Tony Clement brought forward a Motion for the House of Commons to keep the Royal Canadian Air Force CF-18's involved in the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

The motion was easily defeated by the Majority Liberal Government;  104 YAYS to 220 NAYS.
There Liberal and NPD members voted against the motion; while the Conservatives and Bloq Quebecois voted for the motion.

The motion read as follows:

"That, given that ISIS has taken responsibility for recent deadly attacks in Paris, Beirut, and Africa, and has declared war on Canada, this House: (a) acknowledge that now is not the time for Canada to step back and force our allies to take on a heavier burden in the fight against ISIS; (b) remind the government of its obligation to our NATO partners and its responsibility to protect the freedom, democracy, safety, and security of Canadians; (c) call upon the government to maintain the air-combat mission of the RCAF CF-18 fighter jets; (d) express its appreciation to the members of the Canadian Armed Forces for their participation in the fight against terror; and (e) reconfirm our commitment to our allies to stop ISIS." 

If you wish to see how your MP voted, please see the Record of the Vote.