Canadian killed by peshmerga
The Associated Press reports that Sergeant Andrew Joseph Doiron, a Canadian Special Forces soldier was killed mistakenly by peshmerga forces when the Canadians showed up unexpectedly near the front of the fighting near the village of Bashiq where the previous day the Kurds had experienced heavy fighting. The Canadians were there to help direct supporting fires;
Peshmerga spokesman Halgurd Hekmat said Sunday a group of Canadian soldiers showed up unannounced Friday to the village of Bashiq, in Iraq’s Nineveh province near the militant-held city of Mosul. The area had seen heavy fighting against Islamic State militants the previous day.
“When they returned, the peshmerga asked them to identify themselves,” Hekmat told the AP. “They answered in Arabic, that’s when peshmerga started shooting. It was their fault.”
Canada has 69 special forces soldiers with Kurdish peshmerga fighters in what the government calls an advising and assisting role.
[…]
Canadian Defense Minister Jason Kenney responded to allegations Sunday that Canadian soldiers were on the front line in an interview with CTV, saying that Canadian soldiers were well behind the lines when the soldier was killed.
[…]
“They weren’t on the front line,” Kenney said. “It was 200 meters from the front.”
Yeah, 200 meters from the front is the front when the maximum effective range of an AK 47 is about 350 meters. Some of his mates were also wounded in the incident but they’re recovering from their wounds. And, yeah, it was the Canadians’ fault that they answered the challenge in Arabic, you know, in that region of the world, with a number of coalition forces that do speak Arabic. That was sarcasm, by the way.
Category: Terror War
You’d think an official spokesman would have enough sense to say something like “it was a tragic misunderstanding” rather than try to assign blame.
That was a monumentally bad statement.
My bet is the Canadian public rethinking the nature of Pashmerga support. Which is really unfortunate because they are an ally against ISIS and ISIS is a blight on humanity.
Fratricide is bad but when it is done by an ally and that ally blames the victim it really strains relationships between allies.
Well-said.
Agreed. That misstatement could potentially cost the Kurds dearly.
Culturally, Arabs will do anything to deflect blame for things that go wrong – especially when things go tragically wrong as in this situation. I’ve served as an advisor to both the IA and IP, and saw it all the time.
I’ve never worked with Peshmergha or Kurds, so I don’t know if they have this same cultural aversion to responsibility that the Arabs I worked with do.
I’d be interested to hear from anyone who has worked in Kurdistan if this might explain the statement blaming the Canadians.
Lars called it. I talked to my mom and dad this morning. They live in Calgary. This is NOT playing well in Canada.
This was intentional.
Why do people keep saying that?
What possible benefit does the Pashmerga get for doing this intentionally?
What possible benefits did some IA, IP, or ANA forces have for killing coalition forces in surprise ambushes inside their compounds? They killed their enemy! Then again that’s real world shit, which seems to be something you know nothing about.
Except that the Peshmerga are ethnically aligned with us against an enemy that is planning on enslaving and killing them entirely, and nothing like this has ever happened. Before. Doesn’t make any sense.
You believing the Pashmerga are the same as ANA, IP, or IA reveals that you are the one that lacks awareness on this issue.
And my patrol was the first patrol to reach an engineer convoy hit by an IED that killed an American. My team and I apprehended the triggerman, who was IP. So I know first hand how the IP turned on us.
Exactly how long did you work with the Peshmerga? I worked with IA, IP, ANA and ANP and Peshmerga and I had a hell of a lot better feeling with the Kurds than with any of the others. Please, tell me how much they are like the Arabs in Iraq and Pashtuns in Afghan?
Ref to Brian
I worked extensively with the Peshmerga. I have a hard time believing that this was intentional. Heck, whenever I went up to Kurdistan we walked around the city without body armor on.
Were the Canadians wearing camo and molle gear? How did they approach the frontline? What weapons were they carrying? Were their weapons aimed at the Peshmerga? How many patrols/raids/etc. had the Canadians done out of the base? I’m with FatCircles0311, I don’t believe for one minute this was accidental. Pretty fucking hard to not tell a white man versus an arab man at verbal distances. Also what exactly were the words? Just using arabic phrases for standard situations was SOP, so them answering in arabic is completely meaningless.
I have no doubt it was accidental. These are seasoned fighters but not a disciplined force with well integrated command and control. Even armies wearing the same uniform, with excellent embedded and redundant command and control have accidents like this.
I is just sad the Pashmerga blamed the Canadians.
*it is just sad…
The reason the Arabic matters is the Pashmerga speak Kurdish. So when they challenged and heard Arabic in response they assumed it was not a Pashmerga patrol.
It was a tragic accident. The intentional harm is being caused by the way the Pashmerga are handling it.
A group of men carrying an AK based weapon system looks significantly different than a group of men carrying an M16 based weapon system. Moreover men wearing camo with Molle gear look even more different than men wearing man dresses. To top this off did they dismount to approach the gate from obvious coalition forces vehicles? Were they shouting the password or calmly speaking the password(IE how far away were they)?
If the Canadians were dressing like ISIS on purpose as part of their mission I can understand it, but other than that the explanation reeks of BS. I’d say drugs, alcohol, or a combination of both could be a likely reason. Outside of that it was intentional IMO.
Most ISIS wear captured or market purchased tactical gear and uniforms.
As do most Pashmerga.
Here are the facts:
It was at night. The Canadians were on foot having left their vehicles to approach the front line of Pashmerga trrops. THe Pashmerga had been engaging with ISIS in the area throughout the evening and night.
As the Canadians, on foot, were challenged at a checkpoint 200 meters from the front line of Pashmerga troops the Canadians answered in Arabic. And the Pashmerga, believing the Canadians to be ISIS opened fire.
What I would like to know it if the Pashmerga had challenged in Arabic or Kurdish. Since they are Pashmerga it make the most sense that the challenge was Kurdish. However, since they might have suspected approaching ISIS they may have challenged in Arabic to keep the suspected ISIS patrol from opening fire first.
If they were challenged in Arabic it makes sense that the Canadians answered in Arabic.
Either way, and regardless of the circumstances the Pashmerga should not be blaming the Canadians.
I highly doubt alcohol or drugs were involved given the continued fighting in the area that night. The Pashmerga were almost certainly quite sober. I doubt anyone was wearing a “man dress.” The Canadians were absolutely not dressed in ‘ISIS disguises’ their role was to provide direct advisement, particularly coordinating air to ground fire support, to Pashmerga engaged in combat with ISIS. They would not have done this mission in ‘ISIS disguises’.
I agree their explanation “reeks.” Blaming the victims is a monumental fuck-up and makes an already extremely tragic event even worse.
First accents are distinct, and this happened in freaking Iraq. This isn’t someplace that hasn’t had coalition forces. The language excuse is extremely weak. Once again what was the approximate distance?
Second while I clearly don’t know the exact situation, a military vehicle has a very distinctive outline compared to a civilian vehicle. Also why did they get out of the vehicle if they weren’t in normal conversational distance?
Third if they were approaching the front lines in the scenario you presented they would have come from the rear of the Peshmerga lines. This has 2 implications… why wasn’t their movement communicated(assuming any sense of organization) and if someone approaches from the rear the normal reaction is to be hesitant in a shoot/no shoot situation. Assuming there was anywhere near a front line, which their certainly was not when I was in Iraq. But that does go against the credibility of the story.
Fourth go put on normal clothes with a drop vest while carrying an AK series weapon, then tell me how you don’t look much different than a soldier wearing body armor carrying an M4 type weapon. Keep in mind coalition forces would also have attachments on their rifle etc., be wearing helmets with NVGs attached, and generally look much different than a rag tag force.
If drugs or alcohol didn’t come into play, then the alternative is real ugly. There were troops that engaged IA and IP “friendlies” after being fired upon. So while I respect the Peshmerga as a whole, that doesn’t mean there won’t be bad apples infiltrating them like in those other organizations.
It was at night. The gear they were wearing would be less distinctive in the dark. I have no idea why you insist ISIS wears normal clothes. They wear as much tactical gear they can get and most have captured quite a bit.
And the accent thing is nonsense. The accent of the operator who answered the challenge would be whatever his background if he was of Arab descent or it would be an aggregate of his instructors if he was school taught.
They exited their vehicle because they were approaching the area of fighting. Dismounting was probably more tactical and secure in this case.
Your reference to the IA an IP indicates you really do not understand how different western troops’ relationships with the Pashmerga has been over the last two and half decades.
Most troops assigned to the kurdistan region during the Iraq war could operate without armor in a very low threat environment.
There is no reason for the Pashmerga to engage Canadians intentionally. And ISIS infiltrating Pashmerga is not even close to infiltrating the IA or IP. Pashmerga would detect and infiltrator relatively easily. And I understand first hand how bad guys infiltrated the IP/IA and how much of a problem it was for coalition forces.
You suspicions are unfounded and based on completely false similarities.
Brian, have you been to Kurdistan and seen the love they have for Arabs? Wait and see what the details are before you throw out accusations. Speaking Arabic at night was IMHO incredibly stupid – did they not know that variations of Persian is spoken by the Kurds, and that their language was banned in Iraq, increasing their hatred of the Arabs? I agree that there were poor security procedures, but I don’t agree with a knee jerk hypothesis.
Well, Kurdish and Arabic are not exactly as distinct as, say, Polish and Japanese or something. It’s more like Spanish and French. In a battlefield situation, both languages being completely foreign to western ears, yet similar to one another, I’m not going call them stupid.
THEY know the differences. Locals in Zakho threw a fit when some Kurds from Mosul came up wearing their man dresses instead of traditional Kurdish garb. I saw this in 2004 – does no one brief forces on the regional situation since then? Did the Kurdish flags flying everywhere in “Iraq” not tip them off?
And the French know Spanish when they hear it – my point is, battlefield situation, middle of the night, challenged in what sounds like Arabic to your ears, and they answered – that doesn’t spell “incredibly stupid” in my book – that’s all I’m saying.
I would also argue that skin color and “western” accented Arabic don’t mean much when you have a large number of individuals from western countries going over there to support ISIS. That “John” guy who was beheading people in the videos was identified largely because of his Enlish accent. And SF types aren’t known for always wearing standard uniforms and using issued weapons.
Unfortunate circumstances aside…..RIP Warrior.
Step forward now, you warrior
You’ve borne your burdens well
Walk peacefully on heaven’s streets
You’ve done your time in hell
(from The Final Inspection)
If the Canadian account is accurate, then whose fault was it that the Canadians were fired upon and hit? As I recall, a shooter has to pull the trigger of his weapon and, when he does, the resultant firing often prompts others to follow suit blindly. Whether the event should have been sugar coated for political purposes is a separate issue but, as I see it, the Canadian Hekmat called a spade a spade. We can use more of that, not less.
RiP
VP