British bombers strike at IS-controlled oil fields
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BRITISH bombers made their first strikes on Islamic State in Syria yesterday, hitting oilfields that Prime Minister David Cameron says are being used to fund attacks on the West.
Tornado bombers took off from the Royal Air Force Akrotiri air base in Cyprus just hours after British lawmakers voted 397-223 to support Cameron’s plan for airstrikes. They returned to base safely several hours later.
The four aircraft used laser-guided bombs to attack six targets in the Omar oil fields in eastern Syria controlled by the Islamist militant group which British officials call Daesh, using an Arabic acronym that the group rejects.
“That strikes a very real blow at the oil and the revenue on which the Daesh terrorists depend,” Defense Secretary Michael Fallon told the BBC.
“There are plenty more of these targets throughout eastern, northern Syria which we hope to be striking in the next few days and weeks,” Fallon said. He said Britain was sending eight more warplanes to Cyprus to join the missions.
There was no immediate information about casualties.
The British contribution still forms only a tiny part of US-led “Operation Inherent Resolve,” which has been bombing Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria for more than a year.
Previously, the small British contingent participated in strikes on Iraq but not Syria.
Although the British vote adds little additional military capability to the coalition, it has had outsized political and diplomatic significance since last month’s attacks in Paris, as Europe’s other leading military power wrestled with a decision to join France in expanding its military action.
After 15 years in which hundreds of British troops died serving as the main battlefield ally of the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan, many in Britain are wary of more war in the Middle East.
The decision to extend bombing to Syria divided the opposition Labour Party, opposed by its leader Jeremy Corbyn but supported by its foreign affairs spokesman Hilary Benn in a passionate speech in parliament.
Russia is also bombing Syria outside the US-led coalition. Moscow supports Syrian President Bashar Assad, while the US and its allies oppose him.
“We are going to need to be patient and persistent because this is going to take time. It is complex, it is difficult what we are asking our pilots to do,” Cameron said in a statement.
The prime minister has been criticized for stepping back from the world since he took the top job in 2010, particularly after he lost a 2013 vote on military action against Assad’s government. Yesterday’s vote gives him a chance to restore some of Britain’s global clout.
Just under a third of Labour members of parliament defied Corbyn to vote for action.
“We must now confront this evil. It is now time for us to do our bit in Syria,” Benn said.
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