Canada will extend its NATO mission in Iraq to 2020: Defense Minister

Canada’s defense minister announced on Wednesday that the country would extend its current NATO training mission in Iraq until November 2020.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Canada’s defense minister announced on Wednesday that the country would extend its current NATO training mission in Iraq until November 2020.

The announcement comes as Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan is in Brussels, Belgium, where he is holding meetings with other defense ministers from NATO countries on the ongoing fight against the so-called Islamic State in the region.

“Canada remains steadfast in our support to NATO,” a statement by the Canadian Armed Forces read.

It added that its mission in Iraq is meant “to support stability and security in the Middle East” and “assist Iraq in strengthening its military schools and institutions and advancing Security Sector Reform.”

The statement noted that the current head of the mission, Major-General Dany Fortin, would transfer command to Brigadier-General Jennie Carignan in the fall of 2019.

Canada has been leading the NATO training mission in Iraq since July 2018, which reflects the efforts of United States President Donald Trump to have American allies bear more of the burden of common defense.

The mission builds on past NATO efforts to train Iraqi forces as they work to prevent the re-emergence of the Islamic State and other terror groups. 

Earlier in June, a former Canadian commander in Iraq said the Islamic State continues to pose a threat in the Middle East and across the world despite its territorial defeat in Iraq and Syria.

Brig.-Gen. Colin Keiver, who previously served as Commander Joint Task Force Impact between June 2018 to May 2019, made the comments in an interview with The Canadian Press.

“Da’esh or ISIS in Iraq or northeast Syria has been defeated in the sense that they are no longer a quasi-state,” Keiver said, referring to the terror group’s former de-facto capitals in Iraq’s Mosul and Syria’s Raqqa.

“They no longer hold any ground, but they are absolutely still alive and well in the background,” he added.

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Despite Baghdad having declared a military defeat against the terror group in 2017, the Islamic State continues to wreak havoc across parts of the country, especially in formerly liberated areas and even places it never controlled.

Indeed, senior Kurdistan Region officials have often called on all sides to address the underlying causes which led to the rise of the Islamic State so its ideology can be effectively defeated once and for all.

Sajjan reiterated that point in an interview with Kurdistan 24 in February ahead of meetings with other defense ministers at NATO headquarters in Brussels. 

He underlined that the Global Coalition and its partners must analyze what caused the emergence of the Islamic State and address “some of those root causes as well.”

Ottawa recently extended its general military assignment in Iraq to March 2021 at the request of the Iraqi government.

Canada has 850 military personnel in Iraq, including 250 as part of the NATO mission.