Fight against IS to last another year: Canadian commander

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – The fight to effectively remove the Islamic State (IS) from Iraq and Syria will require another year of hard-fought battles according to the commander of Canada’s joint task force in the region.

Brigadier-General Daniel MacIsaac, who assumed command of several of Canada’s troops linked to Operation IMPACT in March, predicted the global coalition fighting IS will need to be in Iraq and Syria for at least another year.

He fully expects the Canadian mission to be extended beyond June 2017. “I’m sure we will continue to be here after June 30,” MacIsaac said in an interview with Global News on Friday.

According to MacIsaac, the shape of Operation IMPACT may change once the militant group loses its remaining strongholds of Mosul and Raqqa and the fight moves on to the next phase.

“For now, the focus remains on regaining as much ground as possible,” the commander explained.

“Within its territory, IS has been able to control both people and resources — sources of revenue that ultimately fund the group’s global reach,” he added.

Unlike previous prognoses, MacIsaac suspects that as the group’s territory shrinks, the number of international attacks they organize or fund should diminish.

“They are inspiring some people to conduct attacks,” he said. “But because of the pressure we’ve been putting on them, they’re very much having to focus on the retention of their supposed caliphate, its resources, and the control of those people.”

“They’ve kind of reached an imbalance point,” MacIssac concluded.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany