‘The Canadians are among our most important guys': Peshmerga praise elite commandos in fight against ISIL
Matthew Fisher/PostmediaA Kurdish peshmerga keeps a watchful eye out for Islamic State fighters on the frontlines.
BASHIQA
MOUNTAIN, Iraq — It is clear from talking with front line Kurdish
Peshmerga that Canadian special forces have done more on the ground in
the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant than their
coalition partners, including the U.S., and are going to play a critical
part in the coming action to expel these fanatical hardliners from
Mosul.
The silence from Canadian Special Operations Forces Command about this fits with the secretive unit’s habitual reluctance to allow media access of any kind to its commandos when they are forward deployed or after they return from such missions. But it does not fully explain why CANSOFCOM has declined requests by Postmedia since last fall for general information from its operators here on what has been described as a training mission.
In a first, CANSOFCOM opened the door slightly earlier this year when it acknowledged in Ottawa that a few of the approximately 70 advisers it has in Iraq had defended themselves several times by shooting back when they were fired upon by ISIL jihadists. This was revealed before the tragic death of Sgt. Andrew Doiron in a friendly-fire incident with the Peshmerga on March 6 on a barren ridge that has a strategically crucial view of Mosul, one of the places where this war will be won or lost.
During interviews conducted in the autonomous region’s capital, Erbil, and in two location at the front, five Kurdish Peshmerga generals and a slew of junior officers and foot soldiers praised the elite commandos from the Canadian Special Operations Regiment and Joint Task Force 2. This was not simply the Peshmerga being polite to a visitor. They stressed again and again how immensely grateful they were to Canada for the unique role CSOR and JTF2 have been playing in the war against ISIL.
An infantry general responsible for a stretch of the front near
Kirkuk told me he was envious because the Canadians were deployed with a
fellow general he had visited near Mosul. Another infantry general told
me “the Canadians are among our most important guys.”
American and French advisers have been on the front lines from time to time, the Peshmerga told me. But the consensus was that Canada has been more willing to go deep into the field to help them than any other country.
The difference between Canada and its partners in this fight against a resourceful, particularly vicious foe, is in how Ottawa has defined its training and mentoring role with the Peshmerga. Like Britain, Australia and New Zealand, among others, Canada has offered a range of courses inside protected training bases on how to fight.
But as near as I can tell — and this is a world where operatives seldom confirm anything — Canada is the only nation in the U.S.-led coalition that has regularly sent teams of military spotters far forward to identify ISIL targets and the only country whose observers have used lasers to pinpoint those targets for coalition warplanes to destroy.
To know what ISIL is doing and to direct air power to try to stop
them, Peshmerga serving near Mosul told me that almost every night and
sometimes during the day, Canada moves small groups of special forces to
within shouting distance of ISIL positions.
Small wonder, then, that Canadians have come under attack or been caught in the crossfire a few times. While admitting that it was Peshmerga troops who killed Doiron, one senior officer told me that on the night that the Moncton, N.B., native died the Peshmerga and ISIL had also exchanged gunfire in the same area.
I know from having stood with the Peshmerga on the same ridge that Canadian forward air controllers have operated from that they have been close enough to ISIL fighters to see their quarry and their black flags and to hear them talk with each other over their two-way radios using their “noms de guerre,” always preceded by the honorific “abu”, which means “father of” in Arabic.
Another noteworthy thing that Canada has done that their Western partners apparently have not, is to have a few of its advisers camp a short distance behind the front, so that the Peshmerga can easily slip away from their heavily fortified bunkers to a nearby staging area to be mentored in a broad range of military skills before quickly returning to the fight. Canada has also been the only country to provide the Peshmerga with high-tech demining robots that work by remote control.
None of this means that Ottawa has taken up a combat mission in Iraq. The special forces it has in Iraq are too few in number and too lightly armed to undertake even modest offensive operations. The weapons the Canadians have with them are only sufficient to defend themselves against attack.
It would compromise operational security for CANSOFCOM to provide specific details about what its troops have been doing on Bashiqa Mountain and elsewhere in northern Iraq. But Canadians should at least be told that their most highly trained, combat-tested warriors have become central to what the coalition is trying to achieve against the most virulent strain of radical Islam yet seen.
Despite CANSOFCOM’s information blackout, the Peshmerga loudly attested to me how highly they value Canada’s presence with them at the front.
National Post
The silence from Canadian Special Operations Forces Command about this fits with the secretive unit’s habitual reluctance to allow media access of any kind to its commandos when they are forward deployed or after they return from such missions. But it does not fully explain why CANSOFCOM has declined requests by Postmedia since last fall for general information from its operators here on what has been described as a training mission.
In a first, CANSOFCOM opened the door slightly earlier this year when it acknowledged in Ottawa that a few of the approximately 70 advisers it has in Iraq had defended themselves several times by shooting back when they were fired upon by ISIL jihadists. This was revealed before the tragic death of Sgt. Andrew Doiron in a friendly-fire incident with the Peshmerga on March 6 on a barren ridge that has a strategically crucial view of Mosul, one of the places where this war will be won or lost.
During interviews conducted in the autonomous region’s capital, Erbil, and in two location at the front, five Kurdish Peshmerga generals and a slew of junior officers and foot soldiers praised the elite commandos from the Canadian Special Operations Regiment and Joint Task Force 2. This was not simply the Peshmerga being polite to a visitor. They stressed again and again how immensely grateful they were to Canada for the unique role CSOR and JTF2 have been playing in the war against ISIL.
American and French advisers have been on the front lines from time to time, the Peshmerga told me. But the consensus was that Canada has been more willing to go deep into the field to help them than any other country.
The difference between Canada and its partners in this fight against a resourceful, particularly vicious foe, is in how Ottawa has defined its training and mentoring role with the Peshmerga. Like Britain, Australia and New Zealand, among others, Canada has offered a range of courses inside protected training bases on how to fight.
But as near as I can tell — and this is a world where operatives seldom confirm anything — Canada is the only nation in the U.S.-led coalition that has regularly sent teams of military spotters far forward to identify ISIL targets and the only country whose observers have used lasers to pinpoint those targets for coalition warplanes to destroy.
Matthew Fisher/Postmedia
Kurdish Peshmerga Captain Shoro
Hamadamin listens on his walkie-talkie as Islamic State fighters hidden
only 800 metres away exchange orders.
Small wonder, then, that Canadians have come under attack or been caught in the crossfire a few times. While admitting that it was Peshmerga troops who killed Doiron, one senior officer told me that on the night that the Moncton, N.B., native died the Peshmerga and ISIL had also exchanged gunfire in the same area.
I know from having stood with the Peshmerga on the same ridge that Canadian forward air controllers have operated from that they have been close enough to ISIL fighters to see their quarry and their black flags and to hear them talk with each other over their two-way radios using their “noms de guerre,” always preceded by the honorific “abu”, which means “father of” in Arabic.
Another noteworthy thing that Canada has done that their Western partners apparently have not, is to have a few of its advisers camp a short distance behind the front, so that the Peshmerga can easily slip away from their heavily fortified bunkers to a nearby staging area to be mentored in a broad range of military skills before quickly returning to the fight. Canada has also been the only country to provide the Peshmerga with high-tech demining robots that work by remote control.
None of this means that Ottawa has taken up a combat mission in Iraq. The special forces it has in Iraq are too few in number and too lightly armed to undertake even modest offensive operations. The weapons the Canadians have with them are only sufficient to defend themselves against attack.
It would compromise operational security for CANSOFCOM to provide specific details about what its troops have been doing on Bashiqa Mountain and elsewhere in northern Iraq. But Canadians should at least be told that their most highly trained, combat-tested warriors have become central to what the coalition is trying to achieve against the most virulent strain of radical Islam yet seen.
Despite CANSOFCOM’s information blackout, the Peshmerga loudly attested to me how highly they value Canada’s presence with them at the front.
National Post
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