Canadian ISIS attacks will operate out of a Kuwait airfield

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick. A CF-18 sits ready for flight at Camp Fortin on in Trapani, Italy, on September 1, 2011. The federal government intends to send as many as six CF-18 fighter-bombers to join the aerial campaign against ISIS

Canadian warplanes that are to bomb targets in Iraq held by the Islamic State of Iraq & Al-Sham (ISIS) will operate from an airfield in Kuwait.

However, it will be at least one week and perhaps not until near the end of October before six Canadian CF-18 Hornets from CFB Cold Lake are launched from the tiny Persian Gulf emirate, only 400 kilometres from territory held by ISIS, the ultra-radical jihadists who now rule large swaths of Iraq and Syria.

Why might it take so long?

The most obvious reason is that Canada was the last of 13 countries to join the U.S.-led air coalition. An additional complication is the diplomatic note, or an enhanced Status of Forces Agreement, that must be signed between Ottawa and Kuwait before the RCAF can set up its operations in the sheikdom.

Those arrangements are now being settled following the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which ran from Saturday until Tuesday.

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