Canada special forces clash with IS in Iraq

[Bosonic]

Source: AFP

Ottawa (AFP) - Canadian special forces exchanged gunfire with Islamic State fighters in Iraq in recent days, in the first confirmed ground battle between Western troops and IS, a senior officer said Monday.

"My troops had completed a planning session with senior Iraqi leaders several kilometers behind the front lines," Canadian special forces commander Brigadier General Michael Rouleau said.

"When they moved forward to confirm the planning at the front lines in order to visualize what they had discussed over a map, they came under immediate and effective mortar and machine gunfire."

The general said the Canadians used sniper fire to "neutralize both threats" and there were no Canadian injuries.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/canada-special-forces-clash-iraq-195504092.html;_ylt=AwrBJR.AZL1UghoAK5vQtDMD

[Botany]

1. Glad to hear that no Canadians were hurt

DFWC! don't f*** with Canada

[KingCharlemagne]

2. No disrespect to our northern brothers and sisters, but exactly WTF is Canada

doing in Iraq?

[Botany]

3. trying to help clean up the mess caused by W's unneeded war which cause a power .....

..... vacuum which inturn allowed al-Qaeda in Iraq to come into being and then
it morphed into the nasty group called ISIS.

[KingCharlemagne]

4. There was no Al Q'aeda in Iraq before Bush invaded and occupied it. That said, did the

Canadian parliament sign off on this deployment of her forces? Has Canada now lost her collective mind also?

Getting involved in someone else's civil war . . . thought that was a uniquely American talent. (See Vietnam and Central America.)

[Botany]

5. I don't know if the Canadian Parliament signed off on the forces or not.

But ISIS is a nasty bunch and what the natives of the region and the
western powers do about it is a real sticky problem.

[Snow Leopard]

6. Killing ISIS @ssholes apparently

Good for them eh?

[840high]

9. Yes it is good.

[LiberalLovinLug]

7. More to do with our Conservative PM trying to win an election next year

The tried and true tactic that Cons everywhere use all the time. Use war and armed forces to bolster your image as "tough on terrorism".
He almost won back in 2000, and said publicly that he would have sent troops to Iraq (along with Britain and Australia). Luckily he never won a majority here until that sham of a war was winding down. So he's eager to get the chance to flex our collective muscles against the "bad guys". I'm sure he'd be ecstatic if we had a serious terrorist attack as a result of his military adventurism because it would be a I-told-you-so moment and an excuse to fear-monger his way to another election win.

[alcibiades_mystery]

8. Canadian Sniper

[marble falls]

10. Canadian troops are probably some of the toughest forces of all the worlds forces. They and the....

French are the very good peacekeeper forces. They will enforce order. If I had my choice man to man, I'd rather face US forces (who are no bag of Sunday sandwiches, either).