ABOVE: Minister of Defence Rob Nicholson provides an update on the latest military action taken by Canadian CF-18`s against ISIS
TORONTO – Four Canadian fighter jets struck an ISIS warehouse facility Monday as Operation IMPACT—Canada’s mission in support of the multinational Middle East Stabilization Force (MESF)—continued in Iraq.
Defence Minister Rob Nicholson said in a Tuesday statement that the warehouse was used by ISIS militants for training and manufacturing Improved Explosive Devices (IEDs).
The Department of National Defence (DND) said four CF-18 fighter jets carried out Monday’s airstrikes in the vicinity of Mosul, in northern Iraq.
Describing it as the “first Canadian participation in a pre-planned strike,” DND said the Canadian fighter jets delivered “eight bombs at 500 lbs each (4,000 lbs)” on an ISIS compound. About 28,000 lbs of fuel were also delivered by a CC-150 Polaris.
DND said all Canadian aircraft and personnel have safely returned to base and battle damage assessment is ongoing.
Canada has a no-combat prohibition on its roughly 69 special forces troops in northern Iraq, and the current combat mission explicitly rules out the deployment of conventional ground forces.
However, the White House is facing increasing pressure to broaden its role in helping local forces fight ISIS, and experts suggest it’s unclear whether Canada would be obliged to follow suit in such an expansion. At the insistence of the NDP, the Commons foreign affairs committee is about to take up a study of the mission.
READ MORE: Canada’s future ISIS strategy unclear as US debates next steps in Iraq
“I think it’s good that Canada is engaged in this conflict,” said Dr. David Charters in a past interview. Charters is a senior fellow at University of New Brunswick’s Gregg Centre for the Study of War and Society.
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ISIS, also referred to as the Islamic State group after its self-proclaimed caliphate, controls swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria and is reported to have slaughtered thousands of civilians.
Though the U.S., along with five Arab nations, is hitting targets in Syria, Canada is limiting its role to the efforts to eradicate ISIS in Iraq. But this leads to the possibility of pushing the terrorist group back to Syria.
“I think to try and deal with the ISIS problem in Syria and Iraq, all at the same time, in the context of also trying to manage how you respond to the Syrian civil war, makes it so complicated that any efforts will be dissipated,” Charters said.
So far, no nation in the international coalition has committed ground troops to go into battle with ISIS fighters, but many have offered logistical support or supplied weapons to Kurdish fighters in both countries. Obama authorized the deployment of an additional 1,500 U.S. troops to train and advise Iraqi and Kurdish forces in early November, which will take effect in the coming months, according to The New York Times.
“There’s no pretense here that our contribution is going to turn the tide of war against a very determined and skilled foe,” said Dr. Elliot Tepper in a past interview. Tepper is a distinguished senior fellow at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs and a senior research fellow at the Centre for Security and Defence Studies.
READ MORE: War experts weigh in on impact of Canada’s airstrikes on ISIS
“What may well be required is the capacity to strafe troops on the ground. To do that, you have to be at a much lower altitude and therefore much more in harm’s way.”
BELOW: An interactive look at Canada’s CF-18 fighter jets
-With files from Global News reporter Nick Logan and The Canadian Press
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