Six Canadian CF-18 fighter jets will soon be launching airstrikes in Iraq as part of a multi-national effort to combat the Islamic State terror group.

The motion, approved by the Conservatives in the House of Commons last night but rejected by the New Democrats and Liberals in a 157-134 vote, expressly excludes the possibility of ground forces.

The six-month campaign will also include CP-140 surveillance planes, one refueling aircraft and 600 personnel.  Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird clarified the mission when asked by the opposition why the government is pushing Canada to go to war in Iraq.  “We’re not going to war with Iraq.  We’re not going to war with Syria.  We’re going to war with ISIL terrorists,” Baird explained, “people who are decapitating humanitarian workers, selling girls and young women into slavery, people who are summarily executing people of different religious faiths that don’t accept their radical interpretation of Islam.”

A White House statement says the U.S. is grateful for Canada’s further contribution against terrorism.

Several Syrian human rights groups meantime, have issued a dramatic appeal, calling on the world to save the embattled Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani from falling into the hands of Islamic State terrorists.  The appeal came today as more fighting was underway in the town on the Syria-Turkey border.

The groups say the fighting has displaced nearly 280,000 people who fled fearing “killings, executions, throat slitting, be-headings, mayhem and kidnapping of women and children.”