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2016: Canada considers new Libya military mission?

Old Sweat

Army.ca Fixture
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Fallen Comrade
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And now another operation looms as the MND raises the possibility of Canada committing unspecified military resources to operations against ISIS in Libya in this CBC story reproduced under the Fair Dealing provision of the Copyright Act.

Harjit Sajjan hints at a Canadian military mission in Libya

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan says Canada could soon join a military coalition to take on ISIS in Libya, a country beset by a civil war and mounting Islamic terrorism.

"I had a good meeting with my counterpart, the minister of defence from Italy, [on military intervention in Libya]," Sajjan said following a NATO defence ministers' meeting in Brussels..
"Italy is willing to take the lead on this; once we have a good understanding of the political situation, that will allow us to figure out what we need to do," said in an interview with Chris Hall on CBC Radio's The House.


More than four years after Moammar Gadhafi was deposed — in large part due to Western military intervention — Islamic State militants have taken advantage of the resulting political vacuum to establish themselves in Libya's coastal cities.

An estimated 3,000 ISIS fighters are in the country, which has been attracting more foreign recruits in recent months as the journey to Iraq and Syria has become more difficult with Turkey tightening its border with Syria.

Italy has said it wants a leadership role in stabilizing Libya — one of its former colonial possessions — because it is located less than 300 km from the Italian island of Lampedusa.

ISIS-backed elements have carried out several attacks on oil installations, and at least 60 were killed by an suicide bombing against a Libyan police training center earlier this month.

"Before we can actually say 'Yes we're interested,' 'Yes we can do this,' we're doing what all responsible coalition partners should do [asses the political and security situation] and then decide if we have the right capabilities to assist in this mission.

"We will be part of that conversation," Sajjan said.

The defence minister said that any military action in Libya would be based on lessons learned from Canada's experience in Afghanistan.

"It's all about fighting smarter ... there needs to be a political structure in place that you can reinforce so that when you have the military gains you then have a political structure," to safeguard peace and quell ethnic tensions, he said.

At the recent anti-ISIS meeting in Paris — Canada was not invited — Roberta Pinotti, Italy's defence minister, said action must be taken to beat back advances made by the Islamic State.

"We cannot imagine waiting until spring while the situation in Libya is still frozen," she said. "Efforts to resolve the Libyan crisis must be coordinated internationally," Pinotti added, warning that "it is impossible for the international intervention to wait until the upcoming spring."

Pinotti said that there was "total agreement" among the coalition partners at the Paris meeting that Libya's government should ask the West for help to fight ISIS, to avoid fuelling "jihadist propaganda" of yet another "Western invasion."

She went on to say that the so-called Islamic State was strengthening in the current political vacuum, prompting Italy and its allies to prepare for an "emergency," adding that the United States recently has expressed "a greater concern" over ISIS militants in Libya.

With files from Reuters
 
I don't think the Liberals understand that we can't support 3 separate theatres at the same time, with the money they're going to give us. REASSURANCE, IMPACT, and now this one? I know we were all begging for missions post-Afghanistan, but Chretien-style mass deployments while reaping the peace-dividend for defense spending is a good way to lose your best troops, and at worst get someone killed.
 
PuckChaser said:
I don't think the Liberals understand that we can't support 3 separate theatres at the same time, with the money they're going to give us. REASSURANCE, IMPACT, and now this one? I know we were all begging for missions post-Afghanistan, but Chretien-style mass deployments while reaping the peace-dividend for defense spending is a good way to lose your best troops, and at worst get someone killed.

Money for operations largely don't come from the normal budget.
 
I'm more thinking we don't have the equipment resources, not necessarily money. Operational money doesn't buy us extra vehicles/equipment, we're taking that from Canada, depleting the stock, or taking right from units who are training with it.
 
PuckChaser said:
I don't think the Liberals understand that we can't support 3 separate theatres at the same time, with the money they're going to give us. REASSURANCE, IMPACT, and now this one? I know we were all begging for missions post-Afghanistan, but Chretien-style mass deployments while reaping the peace-dividend for defense spending is a good way to lose your best troops, and at worst get someone killed.
Three theaters are supportable.  We typically have many international missions on the go.  The key is that not every mission is a reinforced battle group with an air task force.  I would wait for some details before speculating this will break the CAF.

MJP said:
Money for operations largely don't come from the normal budget.
That varies with time and governments.  Hopefully it is the way hat we continue to go forward.
 
PuckChaser said:
I don't think the Liberals understand that we can't support 3 separate theatres at the same time, with the money they're going to give us. REASSURANCE, IMPACT, and now this one? I know we were all begging for missions post-Afghanistan, but Chretien-style mass deployments while reaping the peace-dividend for defense spending is a good way to lose your best troops, and at worst get someone killed.

Perhaps they plan on purchasing three Mistrals from France and permanently station two BGs offshore to act as expeditionary forces. :dunno:
 
MCG said:
That varies with time and governments.  Hopefully it is the way hat we continue to go forward.

True I should have qualified it with a in recent Operations caveat.
 
Are we going to whip out our F-18s?  I really hope so, the hypocrisy would be hilarious.
 
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/what-a-former-special-ops-commander-thinks-of-justin-trudeaus-isis-plan/


 
One suspects CBC spin in the story; Trudeau II is not going to get us involved militarily in Libya whilst desperately trying to find a UN "peacekeeping" mission in which to take part:

Trudeau and UN chief Ban Ki-moon to talk climate, refugees, peacekeeping
http://leadercall.com/2016/02/trudeau-and-un-chief-ban-ki-moon-to-talk-climate-refugees/

Earlier:

Canada’s New Government and UN Peacekeeping in Africa
https://cgai3ds.wordpress.com/2016/01/06/mark-collins-canadas-new-government-and-un-peacekeeping-in-africa/

Former Liberal Defence Minister Wants Canada to Help Fight Jihadis in Africa
https://cgai3ds.wordpress.com/2016/01/19/mark-collins-former-liberal-defence-minister-wants-canada-to-help-fight-jihadis-in-africa/

Mark
Ottawa
 
So, we're going to try make inroads to Africa again. Peacekeeping in Africa is not a job for western whites. Nobody, good or bad, on that continent wants us there, no matter what, or how, we plan on doing things for them. That includes peacekeeping, which is actually peacemaking as there is no peace to keep. They might be wearing UN blue, but they'll end up doing the same thing we did in Afghanistan. Which was neither peacekeeping or peacemaking. Africa has not forgotten it's time under colonial rule and doesn't want to see us (white military) there again.

Joe Civie doesn't care though. So long as the Trudeau Liberals spin it to their base as a return to being the world's boy scouts and not Harper's warmongering, even though in this case, they might be the same thing.

When our soldiers start getting killed, blown up and into full on fire fights, it'll be interesting to see how this government will square that with the Canadian population.
 
Its apparently not a job for African Union troops either, they're doing a terrible job at it right now.
 
PuckChaser said:
Its apparently not a job for African Union troops either, they're doing a terrible job at it right now.

There is no peace to keep in Libya, so this should be interesting.
 
recceguy said:
When our soldiers start getting killed, blown up and into full on fire fights, it'll be interesting to see how this government will square that with the Canadian population.

Sweep it under the rug like the Medak pocket? oh wait social media and todays media would probably stop that from happening.
 
A slightly older article, but related to this thread.

U.S. and Allies Weigh Military Action Against ISIS in Libya

WASHINGTON — Worried about a growing threat from the Islamic State in Libya, the United States and its allies are increasing reconnaissance flights and intelligence collecting there and preparing for possible airstrikes and commando raids, senior American policy makers, commanders and intelligence officials said this week.

While no decision has been finalized about when the United States and its allies will formally expand action in Libya against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, administration officials indicated that it might be very soon. A decision will probably come in “weeks” but “not hours,” Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday.

“It’s fair to say that we’re looking to take decisive military action against ISIL in conjunction with the political process” in Libya, General Dunford said. “The president has made clear that we have the authority to use military force.”

United States and British Special Operations teams have for months been conducting clandestine reconnaissance missions in Libya to identify militant leaders and map out their networks. Separate teams of American Special Operations forces have over the past year been trying to court allies from among a patchwork of Libyan militias that remain unreliable, unaccountable, poorly organized and divided by region and tribe.

In recent weeks, military commanders have intensified their warnings about the threat from the Islamic State in Libya, where Western officials believe the group now has about 3,000 fighters. Recruits are pouring into Libya weekly, as the journey to Iraq and Syria has become more difficult with Turkey tightening its border with Syria, intelligence officials said.

General Dunford said the United States, France, Italy and Britain are looking with urgency at how to stem the growth in the power of the Islamic State in Libya before it spreads throughout North Africa and the sub-Saharan countries. In particular, he said it was important to “put a firewall” between the Islamic State in Libya and other militant Islamic extremist groups on the African continent, while working to strengthen the ability of African militaries and governments to fight those groups themselves.

Meeting in Europe this week with counterparts from Britain, Italy and France, General Dunford discussed a broad array of military options to turn up the pressure on the Islamic State in Libya.

Officials said there was agreement that the United States and its allies needed to find ways of shoring up Libya’s new government of national accord — established just this week with help from the United Nations but stuck, as of now, in a hotel in Tunis.

France, General Dunford said, will work closely with the United States Africa Command on a plan.

But that may be particularly challenging given that the new government has yet to gain support from the opposing parliaments in Tripoli and Tobruk, separated by the length of the country.

“Although I want to move quickly,” General Dunford told reporters traveling with him in Paris on Friday, “we’ve got to make sure we do this right.” He said that “unchecked, I am concerned about the spread of ISIL in Libya,” adding that he believed that “military leaders owe the president a way ahead.”

All this week, other top American defense leaders were sounding similar notes. “Libya will continue to be a challenge in the year to come, illustrating the new reality where small organizations wield undeserved power,” Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said in a speech in Paris.

“There is a concern about Libya,” Gen. Joseph L. Votel, the head of the military’s Special Operations Command, said at a conference in Washington this week. “It can’t all be about Iraq and Syria.”

Libya could present the West with challenges equal to those an American-led coalition faces in fighting the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. In those two countries, the Islamic State is hemmed in by a host of armed groups with international backing and is being pummeled by American, British and other allied airstrikes.

In Libya, where a NATO bombing campaign helped overthrow Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi four years ago, there is no functional government. Warring factions are far more focused on fighting one another than on battling the Islamic State, and Libya’s neighbors are all too weak or unstable to lead or even host a military intervention.

On Tuesday, Libya’s Presidential Council announced a new government to bring together the groups. But the cabinet nominees still need to be approved by Libya’s internationally recognized Parliament, which sits in Tobruk, in the east.

The Islamic State already has established exclusive control of more than 150 miles of Mediterranean coastline near Surt, Mr. Qaddafi’s hometown.

One of the Islamic State’s most senior leaders, a former Iraqi Army officer under Saddam Hussein now known as Abu Ali al-Anbari, arrived late last year in Libya by boat from across the Mediterranean, residents and Western officials say. Another senior Islamic State operative from Syria, known as Abu Omar, also arrived in Libya recently to help cement the group’s gains, American intelligence officials said this week.

Another senior Iraqi leader of the Islamic State — Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al Zubaydi, also known as Abu Nabil — may have served as the group’s top commander in Libya until he was killed in November in an American airstrike near the eastern Libyan city of Darnah.

Counterterrorism officials regard the Libyan branch as the Islamic State’s most dangerous affiliate, one that is expanding its territory and continuing to mount deadly attacks, including several this month.

“The ISIL branch in Libya is one that is taking advantage of the deteriorating security conditions in Libya, putting itself in the position to coordinate ISIL efforts across North Africa,” Nicholas J. Rasmussen, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said in an interview on C-Span last month.

President Obama’s top national security and foreign policy advisers have participated in several high-level meetings, called principals and deputies meetings, in recent weeks to discuss a range of diplomatic and military options for Libya.

“On ISIS in Libya, we have to be more assertive,” said Ben Fishman, a former top National Security Council official on North Africa affairs and editor of a new book, “North Africa in Transition.” “We have to increase bombing of ISIS while we are working to support the new unity government.”
 
Article Link

ISIS shoots down fighter jet in Libya’s Benghazi

AFP, Benghazi, LibyaSaturday, 13 February 2016

A MiG-23 fighter of Libya’s internationally recognized government was shot down Friday as it carried out air strikes on opposition positions in the coastal city of Benghazi, the military said.

Nasser el-Hassi, spokesman for the government’s forces, told AFP the plane was “shot down in Qaryunes, northwest Benghazi, as it bombed positions of the (Mujahedeen) Shura Council”, a coalition of Islamist militias close to Al-Qaeda.

The ISIS militant group claimed its fighters downed the plane, according to SITE Intelligence Group, a U.S. monitor of militant activity on the Internet.

A military source said the pilot survived having parachuted to safety, but his whereabouts were not immediately clear.

It was the second military air crash this week.

On Monday, another MiG-23 operated by forces loyal to Libya’s recognized government crashed near the eastern city of Derna after attacking ISIS positions.

LANA news agency, which is close to the recognized government, blamed “technical problems” for the downing.

Before crashing, the fighter had carried out raids on ISIS positions around 15 kilometers (nine miles) from Derna.

Two administrations are vying for power in war-ravaged Libya, one based in the capital Tripoli backed by a coalition of militias, and the recognized government, exiled in the east.

In early January, another MiG 23 came down in Benghazi, the main city in the east.

Chaos engulfing Libya since the fall of Dictator Moamer Qaddafi’s regime in 2011 has fostered the rise of ISIS which has based itself in the former dictator’s hometown of Sirte in eastern Libya.
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* that is not a Flogger in the picture in the article.
 
daftandbarmy said:
There is no peace to keep in Libya, so this should be interesting.

As a launching point for many "Migrants" travelling to Italy and southern Europe, perhaps the plan is to patrol the coasts and stop the migration.
 
Eye In The Sky said:
Article Link

ISIS shoots down fighter jet in Libya’s Benghazi

AFP, Benghazi, LibyaSaturday, 13 February 2016

A MiG-23 fighter of Libya’s internationally recognized government was shot down Friday as it carried out air strikes on opposition positions in the coastal city of Benghazi, the military said.

Nasser el-Hassi, spokesman for the government’s forces, told AFP the plane was “shot down in Qaryunes, northwest Benghazi, as it bombed positions of the (Mujahedeen) Shura Council”, a coalition of Islamist militias close to Al-Qaeda.

The ISIS militant group claimed its fighters downed the plane, according to SITE Intelligence Group, a U.S. monitor of militant activity on the Internet.

A military source said the pilot survived having parachuted to safety, but his whereabouts were not immediately clear.

It was the second military air crash this week.

On Monday, another MiG-23 operated by forces loyal to Libya’s recognized government crashed near the eastern city of Derna after attacking ISIS positions.

LANA news agency, which is close to the recognized government, blamed “technical problems” for the downing.

Before crashing, the fighter had carried out raids on ISIS positions around 15 kilometers (nine miles) from Derna.

Two administrations are vying for power in war-ravaged Libya, one based in the capital Tripoli backed by a coalition of militias, and the recognized government, exiled in the east.

In early January, another MiG 23 came down in Benghazi, the main city in the east.

Chaos engulfing Libya since the fall of Dictator Moamer Qaddafi’s regime in 2011 has fostered the rise of ISIS which has based itself in the former dictator’s hometown of Sirte in eastern Libya.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

* that is not a Flogger in the picture in the article.

According to Wikipedia the only twin-engine fighter the Libyans have is the Mig-25 Foxbat.
 
Pretty sure it's a recycled picture of the F-15E that crashed near Benghazi in 2011 during OUP...
 
SupersonicMax said:
Pretty sure it's a recycled picture of the F-15E that crashed near Benghazi in 2011 during OUP...

Yup!  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1368633/Libya-war-US-chopper-shoots-6-villagers-welcomed-Air-Force-F-15-crash-pilots.html
 
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