Canada will not dial down its military mission in Iraq, where special forces soldiers are guiding air strikes and fighting back against Islamic State militants, the Prime Minister says.

"We want to advise and assist Iraqi forces, particularly the Kurdish forces, to lead the combat themselves," Stephen Harper said at a news conference on Thursday. "But let me be clear, this is a robust mission. We are there to make those guys effective so they can take on the Islamic State and deal with them. If those guys fire at us, we are going to fire back and we are going to kill them, just like our guys did."

Mr. Harper's comments came as the country's top general acknowledged that the role of the ground troops in Iraq has "evolved" since he said three months ago they would not be guiding the coalition fighter jets.

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The opposition has accused the government of having misled Canadians about the true extent of the ground mission in the fight against Islamic State.

But speaking at a ministerial meeting of 21 countries involved in the coalition in London, Defence Minister Rob Nicholson said the government "didn't put limits" on the special forces' mandate to "advise and assist" Iraqi forces. He added that the Canadians were directing air strikes, but also training Iraqi forces to fulfill the task.

"They are making sure that the effort to strike at ISIL is as efficient and effective and, quite frankly, as safe as possible. Canadians do have the expertise, and that is why we are working at training the Iraqis in this particular area," Mr. Nicholson said, referring to Islamic State by an abbreviation. "They want to make sure they do everything possible to reduce the possibility of civilian deaths, civilian casualties."

As recently as October, General Tom Lawson said special forces soldiers would not guide air strikes in Iraq, stating the role was not part of their assignment.

"I should be very clear, our special forces are a contingent of 69 over there, are entirely employed in training up counterterrorist agents with Kurds. So they will have nothing to do with that," the Chief of the Defence Staff told CTV News, when asked whether this country's military advisers would be guiding airborne bombing attacks on ground targets.

In a statement on Thursday, Gen. Lawson said: "To be clear, the situation on the ground has evolved since I offered those remarks, and we have increased our assistance with respect to targeting air strikes in direct correlation with an increased threat encountered by the [Iraqi security forces]."

"Our [special operating forces] personnel are not seeking to directly engage the enemy, but we are providing assistance to forces that are in combat," he said.

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The opposition has also raised questions about the fact the special forces were recently involved in combat with Islamic State forces, but Mr. Nicholson said that they were simply defending themselves under attack.

"We haven't done anything we shouldn't be doing. If you're talking about Canadian forces being fired upon, we have a long tradition going back 200 years of returning fire to people who fire against Canadian armed forces," he said.

Mr. Nicholson said the coalition campaign against Islamic State has put the group "on the defensive."

"Their capabilities are being degraded and their progress has been impeded. This is a testament to Canada's ability to work closely with allies and partners to counter the scourge of [Islamic State], which poses a threat to local, regional and international peace and security," he said. "We cannot be complacent about our safety and security at home or abroad."