Watch above: The fate of the Syrian town of Kobani could be turning point in anti-ISIS campaign. CBS’ Tina Kraus reports from London.
Canada’s opposition parties have spoken out against Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s plans to take part in the bombing campaign against ISIS, expressing doubts about how effective coalition airstrikes are against the militant group.
The NDP and Liberals are against Canada joining the bombing campaign — not that it mattered to the Conservatives who voted late Tuesday to join the war in Iraq— and had the chance to raise their concerns and criticism ahead of Tuesday’s vote.
NDP MP Nathan Cullen, in the House of Commons on Tuesday, questioned how much the contribution six CF-18 bombers can do to degrade ISIS.
“As every military expert has said, you cannot defeat ISIS by bombing from 35,000 feet alone. There must be boots on the ground,” said Cullen. “The Conservatives have promised not to offer that.”
“If what ISIS represents is a clear and present danger to this country… one would conclude that Canada’s response would be more than six fighter jets over six months.”
READ MORE: Canada sends advance team to the Middle East ahead of ISIS airstrikes
The criticisms over how efficient the air combat mission is, or will be, are certainly not limited to members of Parliament sitting on the other side of the aisle from the Conservatives.
Politicians and critics in the U.S., which is leading the international coalition striking ISIS targets, are raising their own questions about the mission — and some of those questions are coming from within President Barack Obama’s own camp.
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Take, for example, his former Defense Secretary and CIA Director Leon Panetta.
The proof may lie in the city of Kobani, near Syria’s border with Turkey, where Kurdish fighters are struggling to keep ISIS from completely taking the city.
An Associated Press journalist on the Turkish side of the border heard the roar of planes early Tuesday followed by massive explosions and large plumes of smoke billowing just west of Kobani.
The U.S.-led coalition has conducted similar airstrikes over the past two weeks near Kobani in a bid to help Kurdish forces defend the town. But the number has been limited, and Kurds have appealed for more help in the fight.
“Airstrikes alone are really not enough to defeat ISIS in Kobani. … They are besieging the city on three sides, and fighter jets simply cannot hit each and every Isis fighter on the ground,” Kurdish fighter spokesperson Idris Nassan told the Guardian.
“Each time a jet approaches, they leave their open positions, they scatter and hide. What we really need is ground support. We need heavy weapons and ammunition in order to fend them off and defeat them,” Nassan said.
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Lina Khatib, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, a think tank, wrote last week the airstrikes might have been more effective when ISIS was first making advances but not after it already captured swathes of territory and carried out mass atrocities.
Airstrikes may halt ISIS from taking more territory, she wrote for CNN, but they won’t wipe out the extremist group or its raison d’être.
“Airstrikes will not sever people’s ties with ISIS. The attraction of ISIS to its recruits is not merely ideological. It is based on seeking revenge for economic, social, and political grievances as well as the pursuit of power and money, but also a sense of belonging to a grand project, which is the establishment of a Caliphate.”
If anything, the strikes may play right into ISIS’s hands, especially in instances when civilian lives are lost.
“The more civilians die, the higher the resentment against the coalition, and the more attractive ISIS becomes to potential recruits,” Khatib wrote.
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