Canada to send military advisers to Iraq

Canadian Forces personnel will soon be on their way to Iraq.

On Friday, at the conclusion of the NATO summit in Wales, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the deployment of “several dozen” military advisers to the Middle Eastern country currently embroiled in a battle against Sunni extremists.

"Upon receipt of final consent from Iraq, they will join the U.S. in advising the Government of Iraq on how to enable security forces in the northern part of the country to be more effective against the threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)," Harper said in a statement.

"More specifically, Canadian Armed Forces members will provide strategic and tactical advice to Iraqi forces before they commence tactical operations against ISIL. Canada will be present in an advisory and assistance role."

The deployment came at the request of the United States who already have advisers in Iraq.

Canada has made a thirty day commitment and the government will re-evaluate the situation at the end of that period.

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CBC News has learned that these special advisers will be deployed from the Canadian Special Operations Regimen (CSOR) based in Petawawa.

Alistair Edgar, a military expert from Wilfrid Laurier University says the advisers’ specific tasks might include training Iraqi soldiers with regard to engineering, intelligence, surveillance or reconnaissance.

"Some will be in offices at a logistics and supplies command centre, or in a general or regional command centre…or they might be at training bases, major supply depots etc.," he told Yahoo Canada News in an email exchange.

"It is unlikely that any would accompany Iraqi troops into combat situations certainly, not in any official and formal capacity."

David Perry, a senior security and defence analyst with the Conference of Defence Associations Institute, notes that Canada has also deployed military advisers several times in recent years to conflict zones in Afghanistan, Libya and Mali.

"You have to figure out a way to let the local forces on the ground be at a position to take care of this stuff," Perry told Yahoo.

"So sending advisers to give them backing…makes a lot of sense. It makes more sense than having people that don’t know anything about the local environment, the local culture be on the ground."

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Meanwhile, U.S. President Barack Obama ratcheted-up his talk against ISIL in his post-NATO summit press conference claiming that “there was unanimity … that ISIL poses a significant threat to NATO members.”

"There’s great conviction that we have to act, as part of the international community, to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL, and that was extremely encouraging,” he said, according to Politico.com.

"We are going to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL the same way that we have gone after al Qaeda."

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In addition to the military advisers, Canada had already pledged millions of dollars in humanitarian aid to Iraq.

And, earlier this week, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird announce $15 million in security programming which includes non-lethal security assistance for equipment such as helmets, body armour and logistics-support vehicles to assist security forces combating ISIL.

(Photo courtesy of The Canadian Press)

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