Hours before Iranian missiles hit military targets in Iraq Tuesday, including in a city where Canadian troops have been based, the Canadian Forces started to move troops out of the country.
According to U.S. authorities, about a dozen ballistic missiles targeted Al-Asad airbase near Baghdad and the northern city of Irbil, in the part of Iraq controlled by the country's Kurdish minority. Canadians have long been in Irbil, working with Iraqi troops and maintaining a helicopter unit, and Canada has a diplomatic presence there as well.
In an open letter to the families of the 500 Canadian soldiers in Iraq, Vance said the safety of the troops was his top priority and that security measures were being "considered, reassessed and modified as required on a daily basis." The Canadian contingent includes about 200 soldiers attached to a NATO mission in the south of the country that is training Iraqi counterparts in the basics of soldiering as part of the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
The withdrawal of Canadian forces from Iraq follows a similar decision by other NATO allies, including Germany, Croatia and Romania. There were also reports of U.S. forces being put on high alert over fears of Iranian drone attacks. Donald Trump and senior members of his administration continued to defend Soleimani's killing, with the U.S. president calling the Iranian general a "monster," even as they insisted there was no immediate plan to withdraw American forces from Iraq.
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