OTTAWA — A Canadian military officer attached to the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq says efforts to drive the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant from the country have gone faster than expected – a sign, he says, that the group’s back has been broken.
Brig.-Gen. Craig Aitchison, who is helping oversee coalition ground operations in Iraq, says commanders have been surprised by the lack of resistance from ISIL in recent months.
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That includes in Hawija, where Canadian special forces recently helped local forces eliminate what officials have described as the extremist group’s last major stronghold.
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Yet while ISIS is on its last legs, there are mounting tensions between the central government in Baghdad and Iraq’s northern Kurdish region, whose people voted last month for independence.
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Baghdad opposed the referendum and has since banned international flights into the Kurdish region and threatened to fight the Kurds for control of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and other disputed land.
Aitchison says the coalition is monitoring the situation, and that it won’t take sides if fighting erupts between Kurdish and Iraqi forces – though he obviously hopes things don’t get to that point.
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