OTTAWA: Canada is poised to join the international coalition launching air strikes on the Islamic State group in Iraq after Prime Minister Stephen Harper sought parliament’s support on Friday.
If lawmakers greenlight the action on Monday — as expected — it will be Canada’s first military expedition since Libya in 2011.
Harper said members of the House of Commons, where his Conservative Party enjoys a solid majority, would be asked to vote on the six-month “counter-terrorism” mission.
In his Commons address, Harper said fighter jets and air-to-air refuelling aircraft would be sent to the region to strike targets within Iraq’s borders.
Six hundred aircrew and other personnel will be headed to the Middle East.
Harper said Canadian warplanes could also target the militant group in Syria, but only “with the clear support of the government of that country.”
The prime minister also asked to extend the deployment of up to 69 special forces soldiers advising security forces fighting the Islamic State group in the northern part of Iraq.
There will be “no ground combat mission,” Harper insisted.
In making a case for war, Harper said: “The threat ISIL (IS) represents is real, serious, and explicitly directed in part at our country.”
“Left unchecked this terrorist threat can only grow.”
Harper accused IS jihadists of having “conducted a campaign of unspeakable atrocities against the most innocent of people.
“It tortured and beheaded children, raped and sold women into slavery, it slaughtered minorities, captured prisoners and innocent civilians whose only crime is being or thinking differently from ISIL,” he said.
The Islamic State group gained international attention in August, when its fighters and those from other militant groups swept through the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, then overran swaths of provinces north and west of Baghdad.
AFP
