Defending Iraq

"The use of air power contributing to the destruction of ISIL infrastructure and equipment denies them the military means to attack [Iraq security forces] or coalition assets."
Department of National Defence website, Canada

"I commend the nearly 600 [Canadian] men and women in uniform for their tremendous work today in the international fight to degrade ISIL."
"This strike demonstrates Canada's firm resolve to tackle the threat of terrorism and stand with our allies against ISIL's atrocities against innocent women, children and men."
Defence Minister Rob Nicholson, Ottawa

A Canadian Armed Forces CF-18 fighter jet in Kuwait taxis to takeoff for a mission over Iraq during Operation Impact on Nov. 9, 2014. (Canadian Forces Combat Camera / Department of National Defence)

A Canadian CF-18 fighter-bomber using a laser-guided bomb hit an artillery position on Tuesday north of Tikrit near the city of Bayji in support of Iraqi forces conducting localized offensives in the area. Bunkers, vehicles and an anti-aircraft gun have been destroyed in recent days by the coalition jets pounding the areas. Enabling Iraqi forces to recapture most of the town midway between Baghdad and Kirkuk.

Should the town be completely secured it could become a base for a combined effort to restore Saddam Hussain's hometown of Tikrit to the government, in the hands of the Islamic State since the summer. Iraqi troops faced pockets of resistance around the town, and even with the assistance of the irregular Shiite militias advance has been hindered.

The country's largest refinery situated near the industrial town inside a sprawling complex is hosting a small army unit that has been resupplied and reinforced by air, managing to resist wave after wave of assaults by the fanatical jihadists. Hopes run high that once Bayji has been cleansed of the Islamic State presence, the siege of the refinery will be accomplished.

General Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi was quoted by Iraqi state television claiming troops had retaken Bayji's local government and police headquarters, centred in the town. Footage was aired of army tanks and armoured personnel carriers moving about the streets. Al-Saadi speaking directly to state television by telephone said his forces were hard put to overcome the Islamic State resistance. "There are still clashes near the police headquarters."

Reuters/Stringer -- Iraqi security forces take part in intensive security deployment against ISIS, November 9, 2014, Anbar Province

Booby-trapped houses and ambushes set to surprise the advancing army troops and their accompanying Shiite militias have slowed their advance. The government of Salahuddin province, Raed Ibrahim, affirmed that the military had taken roughly 75% of Bayji and outlying areas, that government forces are countering the suicide bombers Islamic State is advancing in an effort to hold back the military's advance.

The taking of the town would represent a strategic advance in a campaign of attrition and as well would provide a needed morale boost for the government, let alone its military which had distinguished itself previously in the Islamic State capture of Mosul by giving no resistance to the takeover and simply doing their best to melt into the far-off landscape, leaving the Islamists to revel in their conquest.

Canadian involvement in opposing the advance of the Islamic State represents a political contortion of some surprising proportions, given Canada's non-diplomatic and non-political relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran which Canada views as a reprehensible government more given to committing human rights abuses and supporting terrorism than presenting as a 'partner' with the U.S.-led coalition using airstrikes to help combat ISIS.

The irony cannot be lost on any observer that in coming to the aid of Iraq, the coalition has chosen 'sides' in a Shiite versus Sunni regional conflict, where the Sunni countries of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Turkey have all supported and funded the Islamic State, and the Republic of Iran sponsors its own terrorists like Hezbollah and Hamas (coincidentally funded by Qatar as well, and portrays itself as a champion of human rights by opposing Islamic State, a terrorist group of which it does not approve.