JOINT TASK FORCE TWO (JTF 2)
JTF 2 is the senior unit as well as one of two National Mission Force units within CANSOFCOM. Its mission is to protect the Canadian national interest and combat threats to Canadians at home and abroad. JTF 2 as a unit officially stood up on April 1, 1993. Prior to that, the federal responsibility for hostage rescue and counterterrorism in Canada was with the RCMP Special Emergency Response Team (SERT). Although initially created to take on the responsibility for hostage rescue and counterterrorism, the Unit leadership envisioned a greater role for JTF 2 as part of the larger government national security apparatus. In 1994, the Chief of the Defence Staff approved the Unit’s enlargement and increased capacity; the following year, JTF 2 began to establish a national maritime counterterrorism capability. It also began to deploy small teams around the globe to such locations as Haiti, the Former Yugoslavia, north-west and Central Africa, and Lebanon to undertake a number of SOF tasks. Although JTF 2 evolved and matured its capabilities throughout the 1990s, its true turning point came in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11. In support of the U.S. Operation Enduring Freedom, the Unit deployed a special operations task force (SOTF) under the operational control of the American Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force (CJSOTF). This deployment was part of a series of significant changes for JTF 2. Political and military decision-makers fully recognized the Unit’s strategic relevance, and as a result the government committed $120 million over five years for its expansion, which included an increase in manpower and infrastructure, as well as the procurement of new equipment and technologies. The JTF 2–based SOTF was deployed in the Afghan theatre of operations from December 2001 to November 2002. During this period, the Unit was completely integrated into the CJSOTF to conduct numerous combat operations, earning a reputation as a world-class SOF capability. On December 7, 2004, the President of the United States awarded the JTF 2 component of the coalition Task Force K-Bar a Secretary of the Navy, Presidential Unit Citation. JTF 2 redeployed to Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2005, due to a request from the Americans, who publicly stated that “Canada’s elite Tier 1 JTF 2 is as capable as any Tier 1 Special Forces in the world [and it] makes a significant contribution whenever deployed.” The Unit remained actively engaged in Afghanistan from 2005 until the end of Canadian combat operations in 2011. Since the Canadian withdrawal from Afghanistan, JTF 2 has been extremely busy across the globe providing the Command, the Chief of the Defence Staff, and the government of Canada with precision SOF effects in support of the national interest. The Unit’s participation in the Coalition fight against the Islamic State in Iraq is but one of its many recent activities. Notwithstanding its expeditionary record of excellence, throughout its existence, JTF 2 has maintained its domestic counterterrorism responsibility as part of the national security apparatus. Even while committed on expeditionary tasks, the domestic environment has remained its number one priority, as witnessed through numerous domestic operations and engagements with security partners throughout the Unit’s existence.