OTTAWA — NDP leader Tom Mulcair is forgoing the celebration and raising red flags after reports a Canadian sniper in Iraq broke the world record for the longest confirmed kill.
National Defence says the sniper is a member of the ultra-secret Joint Task Force 2 unit deployed as part of Canada's mission against ISIL, and that his target was more 3.5 kilometres away.
That is more than a kilometre farther than the previous record, which was held by a British sniper who shot a Taliban fighter in Afghanistan in 2009.
But while news of the shot is spreading around the world like wildfire, Mulcair has written to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau raising concerns about what the shot means for Canada's mission in Iraq.
In particular, Mulcair says the incident raises fresh questions about the Liberals' promise that Canadian soldiers would not be involved in combat with ISIL.
The government has long maintained that Canadians soldiers in Iraq are not in combat, even though their so-called "advise and assist" mission allows them to shoot and kill ISIL fighters.
The Canadian Armed Forces confirmed on Thursday that a member of its Joint Task Force 2 — the country’s elite special forces — made the record-breaking shot, killing an Islamic State militant in Iraq within the last month.
“For operational security reasons and to preserve the safety of our personnel and our Coalition partners we will not discuss precise details on when and how this incident took place,” the military said in a statement to Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper.
The kill was independently verified by video camera and other data.
The sniper worked in tandem with an observer, who helps to spot targets, and used a standard Canadian military issued McMillan TAC-50 rifle, according to BBC. He shot the target from a high rise, and it took the bullet around 10 seconds to hit the militant.
A military source told the newspaper that the shot required the shooter to account for wind, ballistics and the Earth’s curvature.
“You have to adjust for him firing from a higher location downward and as the round drops you have to account for that. And from that distance you actually have to account for the curvature of the Earth,” the military source was quoted by Globe and Mail as saying.
