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The general was speaking during a wide-ranging discussion about the Royal Canadian Air Force’s war in Iraq and its new mission attacking the same enemy in Syria.

“We went from daylight to nighttime and during all the time that we were airborne there was not one moment when the crew were not busy,” the former CF-18 Hornet pilot said.

“We have night vision goggles and when you use them everything lights up pretty brightly. You can see if anyone is firing on the ground. We saw surface-to-surface fire. Engagements were definitely happening between ISIL forces and ISF (Iraqi Security Forces).”

Particularly impressive was Baghdad at night which “is a big city and was well light up,” he said.

One difference between Iraq and Syria was that Damascus had “built one of the most integrated air defence systems in the world in the western part of their nation,” Constable said. “From the middle to the eastern parts of the country, along the Euphrates River valley and up to [the ISIL capital] Raqqa and a little further north toward Aleppo there are fewer air defences. The primary area where we intend to operate over Syria air defences are either non-existent or much less effective.”

That meant that “from an air power perspective the operations over Iraq and Syria are very similar.”

More telling was that “in certain parts of Iraq we are able to closely integrate our operations with Iraqi security forces. Because ISF do not operate in Syria we don’t have an equivalent we can integrate with.” As the RCAF had just begun flying over Syria, air crews were not yet “as integrated as the U.S. side is.” It was “going to take that much extra work on our part to do the intelligence gathering to discriminate between ISIL forces and civilians or other forces.”