Bombing ISIS Targets
"[Multiple senior and mid-level leaders of the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham died in] targeted coalition air strikes [the past month]."
"While we do not discuss the intelligence and targeting details of our operations, it is important to note that leadership, command and control nodes, facilities and equipment are always part of our targeting calculus."
Rear Admiral John Kirby, Pentagon press secretary
"[Two CF-18s destroyed two ISIS positions] while taking part in coalition missions in support of Iraqi security forces ground operations conducted in an area northwest of Mosul [on Wednesday]."
"Deliberate targets are pre-determined before the mission commences, while dynamic targets can be defined as targets of opportunity."
"Meanwhile, the Aurora has assisted in the development of the intelligence picture by providing battle damage assessments following coalition engagements while also supporting the identification of possible [ISIS] targets."
Operation Impact, Canadian military statement
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"International legal obligation to stop genocide and atrocities [had been neglected in the debate over confronting ISIS]."
"The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) stipulates that if a country is unable or unwilling to protect its civilians from mass atrocities, then the international community must act swiftly to fill the protection void."
"The air attacks against ISIS are helping enforce the goals of R2P, as the international community works to do more to halt and interdict mass atrocity crimes, including genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and war crimes. But has it come too late?"
Kyle Matthews, report, Canadian Defence & Foreign Affairs Institute
Attacks against the Islamic State of Iraq and Al Sham that took place in mid-November and early December are now being confirmed as hugely successful. The coalition air campaign has succeeded in taking several senior ISIS officials out of contention; among those having met their death was the ISIS military chief. Two ISIS positions had been destroyed by Canadian CF-18 warplanes.
Radwan Talib, ISIS commander of the city of Mosul was killed. As was ISIS chief Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi's deputy in Iraq, Haji Mutazz, and Abd al-Basit, the military emir for Iraq. These "key leaders" represent a significant loss for the Islamic State, hobbling its capacity to plan and wage operations to counter Iraqi security forces' advances.
First reported in The Wall Street Journal, the deaths were confirmed at a time that the Kurdish peshmerga militias finally broke the Mount Sinjar siege where minority Yazidis who were targeted by ISIS were trapped. According to Kurdish officials this represents the biggest ground offensive against the jihadists yet to have succeeded in achieving its goal.
The coalition air campaign has succeeded in destroying hundreds of ISIS fighters, among them many foreign jihadis. The Islamic State, according to military officials, had been forced to abandon heavy weapons like tanks and artillery, readily targeted from the air by coalition warplanes. Which hasn't stopped ISIS from continuing to commit beheadings, mass executions and enslavement of women as they consolidate their hold on the region, imposing Sharia law.
Canadian CF-18s have given "top cover" for a Royal Australian Air Force transport that dropped humanitarian aid to civilians trapped on Mount Sinjar. All of which activities relate to the Responsibility to Protect now being engaged in on an ongoing basis by coalition members of the U.S.-led effort to rout the Islamic State.
Doing nothing whatever, unfortunately, to protect Sunni Syrians from the very same types of atrocities committed by state agency, with the Syrian Alawite Shiite Baathist regime of Bashar al-Assad using chemical weapons, barrel bombs, artillery, torture, rape and mass slaughter on their own people.
That the Islamic Republic of Iran is engaged in aiding Syria, as a fellow Shiite nation, and is also involved heavily through its Republic Guard militias in fighting alongside the Iraqi military in Iraq, where coalition troops are also operating, although not in the same theatre, does represent a bit of a moral dilemma, adding to the complexities of Middle East politics and sectarian disequilibrium, to put a polite stamp on it.
Labels: Atrocities, Canada, Conflict, Iraq, Islamic State, United States
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, December 20, 2014
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