Canada’s prime minister on Monday announced that the country will end airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq by Feb. 22, saying that “the people terrorized by ISIL every day don’t need our vengeance, they need our help.”
Justin Trudeau, following up on campaign promises he made last year, also announced that the government will expand efforts to train local forces and rebuild the war-torn region. Military personnel in the region will increase to 830 from the current 650 and provide planning, targeting and intelligence expertise.
“As I said many times throughout the campaign in my commitment to Canadians, this is a non-combat mission,” Trudeau said. The Liberal leader said Canada’s contribution to the U.S.-led coalition’s mission against the Islamic State group is being extended until the end of March 2017.
The U.S. had asked coalition members to boost their military contributions in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State group after the deadly attacks in Paris in November. However, Trudeau’s promise that Canada would pull its jets was already part of his winning campaign.
“While airstrike operations can be very useful to achieve short-term military and territorial gains, they do not on their own achieve long-term stability for local communities,” Trudeau said during a news conference Monday. The country had six fighter jets carrying out the strikes.
“We will be supporting and empowering local forces to take their fight directly to ISIL so that … they can reclaim their homes, their land and their future,” the prime minister added.
Canada will keep two surveillance planes in the region as well as refueling aircraft, and it will triple the number of soldiers training Kurdish troops in northern Iraq to about 200, from about 69 now. The size of Canada’s “train, advise and assist” mission will triple, including additional medical personnel and equipment including small arms, ammunition and optics to assist in training Iraqi security forces.
Trudeau said the government will spend more than US$1.15 billion (CA$1.6 billion) over the next three years on the mission as a whole, including on security, stabilization and humanitarian and development assistance.
Last March, one Canadian soldier was killed and three others were injured in a friendly fire incident in Iraq.
The military has said that during Canada’s decade of operations in Afghanistan, 158 Canadian Forces personnel died.
Trudeau said Monday that Canada learned the hard way in Afghanistan that airstrike operations do not on their own result in long-term stability. He said Canada gained valuable experience training local Afghan police and military forces.
“Experience that the Canadian Armed Forces should be bringing to bear in Iraq and Syria,” he said.
The U.S. has said it respects Canada’s decision to pull its fighter jets out of the air campaign. But the Americans did not invite Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan to recent coalition meetings in Paris.
Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook welcomed Canada’s announcement and said Defense Secretary Ash Carter would be discussing it with his Canadian counterpart in Brussels on Thursday at a meeting of anti-IS coalition members.
“The secretary sees these as significant contributions, and he appreciates the decision by the Trudeau government to step up Canada’s role in the campaign at this critical time,” Cook said.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.Â
you have to get rid of the bad, before you can do good!
Millions for defense, not one red cent for tribute!
THANKS FOR NOTHING CANUCKS!
Right on do liberals do any thing right
Did any of you even bother to read the story? Canada is only pulling out 6 aging F-18s. The USA has more modern planes in mothballs than we have in our whole fleet. You won’t even notice they are gone.
And for the record, every war the US has become involved with, Canada has been there to participate, without exception.
Our political mouthpieces are just like yours. In the Gulf Wars we officially didn’t participate but we had oilers and supply ships supporting everything your fleets did. We now are increasing our presence threefold on the ground to train Iragi security forces to take care of their own damn country.
We’re still supporting US forces just as we always have. Ignore the politicians, they’re just passing gas when they open their mouths.
It looks like they aren’t serious enough to be concerned
Trudeau is another spineless Obama. Canadians will be sorry for electing this no brain idiot and we will have to double our border security.
Leftists like Trudeau disapprove of killing non-whites and non-Christians (except Jews), but don’t give a thought to the killing of whites and Christians.
Canadians like Trudeau, if they recognize a threat from non-whites or non-Christians, are more than happy to deal with that threat with the solution of “Let George (Washington) do it!”
When “Strike Control” takes off the gloves, the war will change radically. Sadly, Obama thinking limits the attacks to individual targets and minimizes the effectiveness of the air power available. There are answers that could put ISIS on the defensive in weeks and mop up the ISIS remnants in a few months. Don’t hold your breath! No changes will be made until OBAMA and the Democrats are out of office. (The same goes for Afghanistan. Military leaders are denigrated to “baby sitting” the country.)
These certainly aren’t the Canucks of WW2 nor the Brits of the same era….the world has turned into a whole lot of Wussies I feel badly for my grands
Because he is moving refugees onto the army basis, he is sending the evicted troops to Iraq and Syria. Good move Selfie Boy, eh!
Typical bloody Socialist. He’s somewhat like Obama – allowing Muslims ( Islamists) to dictate in Canada. The country(or rather, the people) will eventually rue the day they voted Trudeau into power….make my words!
What? A country using common sense? And that learned from mistakes of others?