OTTAWA - Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird says Canada fully supports U.S. airstrikes against Islamic extremists in northern Iraq and has received no request for military assistance in the volatile region.
American warplanes bombed artillery used by the al-Qaida splinter group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
The guns and rockets were being used against Kurdish forces defending Irbil, a city of approximately 1.5 million people.
The militants overran Iraq's biggest Christian town of Qaraqosh earlier this week and the United Nations says as many as 50,000 refugees from the Yazidi religious minority community are trapped on a mountain in the area.
U.S. planes conducted airdrops of food and assistance.
Baird says Canada continues to condemn the "repugnant" killing of innocent civilians, including women and children, from Christian, Yazidi and other religious and minority communities.
He says Canadian officials — including Canada's ambassador to Iraq, who is based in Jordan — will be working to determine how best to support the Iraqi people.
