WATCH ABOVE: A former advisor to two of Canada’s chiefs of defence staff, retired Colonel George Petrolekas, details the problems he sees with the combat mission Canada is joining to fight the Islamic State.
OTTAWA — The allied campaign against ISIS is under-resourced compared to previous interventions, according to retired Colonel George Petrolekas, a former advisor to two chiefs of defence staff — who suggested a massive intervention would have a greater impact than the plan of attack currently underway.
In an interview on The West Block with Tom Clark, Petrolekas pointed to the fact that late last week, there were a mere nine airstrikes around the embattled town of Kobani in a 24-hour period.
Airsrikes are taking place in Kobani, a town sitting on the border between Syria and Turkey, in an effort to prevent ISIS from obtaining a lodgement there.
U.S.-led airstrikes last week near the town helped Kurdish fighters push back the Islamic State group a day after it appeared on the verge of seizing the town, the fate of which has emerged as a key test of whether coalition air power can roll back the extremist group.
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Over several days last week, thousands of Islamic State fighters armed with heavy weapons looted from captured army bases in Iraq and Syria managed to push into parts of the town, also known by the Arabic name of Ayn al Arab.
Aside from the mission being under-resourced, however, there is another issue lying in the fact Kobani is the last Syrian Kurd outpost in an area surrounded by ISIS, Petrolekas explained.
WATCH: Airstrikes pound ISIS positions around embattled town of Kobani
Further compounding the issues, Petrolekas said — and one he said should be of concern to all involved in the fight against ISIS — is how a failed attack on Kobani could affect refugees.
“If we don’t stop ISIS there, we create the conditions where another 120,000 refugees will be streaming into the Turkish border or running around in Syria without protection,” Petrolekas said.
The Islamic State group has tightened the noose around Kobani since mid-September, when it launched a blitz in which it captured several nearby Kurdish villages and brought Syria’s civil war yet again to Turkey’s doorstep.
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The fighting has forced at least 200,000 town residents and villagers from the area to flee across the nearby frontier into Turkey. Activists say more than 400 people have been killed in the fighting.
Bearing all this in mind, Petrolekas said, we may eventually see a ground force, as U.S. President Barack Obama alluded when he initially announced the campaign.
Whether Canada takes part in that phase of the attack is unknown.
“I think there is no public inclination in Canada to do that,” he said. “I’m only pointing out from a military standpoint, as the president said, as the U.S. commanders have said, that a ground force is necessary.”
The motion passed in Parliament recently set up a six-month commitment for Canada’s involvement in the mission against ISIS.
The Conservatives have said they will go back to Parliament to seek an extension if it comes to that.
“We’ll have to see,” Petrolekas said, pointing out many members of the coalition forces aren’t yet in theatre. “We’ll have to take a measure of the pulse in about a month or so, two months … The signpost for me would be: are there going to be other Kobanis?”
All this, however, begs the question: Should the allied forces just go in full tilt and immediately launch a massive intervention?
“That’s certainly one school of thought,” Petrolekas said. “At the outset, I would wish that at least the air campaign was better-resourced than what it is right now. We’re certainly able to provide some coverage, but we’re not able to provide 24-hour, persistent coverage.”
With files from The Associated Press
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