The Royal Air Force (RAF) has successfully bombed an oil field controlled by Islamic State (Isis) extremists in Omar, eastern Syria, during the second wave of air strikes in Syria by British military forces.
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British Defence Minister, Michael Fallon, talks to British pilots and soldiers at RAF Akrotiri, a British air base near the coastal city of Limassol, Cyprus, Saturday, Dec. 5, 2015.
Across the border in Iraq, an unmanned RAF Reaper drone – flying close support for Kurdish peshmerga ground forces – destroyed a Daesh truck bomb with a direct hit from a Hellfire missile, the MoD said.
British lawmakers approved the bombing of IS targets in Syria on Wednesday.
“Nobody likes strikes, nobody likes warfare, but when you’re dealing with people who are not negotiating with you but simply want to kill as many Westerners or Brits as possible, then you have to use force”, said Fallon.
Speaking to around 200 crew in an aircraft hangar at the base, he said: “This is a very real threat to us in Britain”.
He says the fight against IS will not be “either short or simple”.
The Assad government’s complaint was the same as it is with the USA and the rest of its coalition, that they are conducting airstrikes on Syrian territory without permission from the Syrian government and without any attempt to coordinate with them.
But US government sources said that there was no evidence the attack was directed by IS or that the organisation even knew who the couple were.
The Wall Street Journal quoted two western officials as saying that Abdelhamid Abaaoud – who died in a shoot-out with police following the atrocities – was suspected of having connections with people in Birmingham, including several with Moroccan heritage.
He said the expansion of the strike force had been “seamless” and that their work was valued by Parliament and the people of the UK.
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Belgian authorities yesterday announced they were hunting two new suspects said to have been seen in September travelling with Salah Abdeslam, another suspect who remains at large.
