It was the first time Typhoon jets flew missions over Syria.
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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.
Two Tornado fighter bombers joined an existing eight earlier this week and six Typhoon fighters were also flown to the base, the statement said.
He added: “But there is now a political process alongside the military operation which will lead to, we hope, a new settlement in Syria, a new type of government that will eventually be able to put its own forces into the fight against ISIL Daesh as the civil war ends”. “The American people should feel confident that, you know, we are going to be able to defend ourselves and make sure that, you know, we have a good holiday and go about our lives”.
Fallon confirmed that British bombers successfully hit oil fields controlled by the militants in Syria, in the hope of cutting off sources of their revenue and smashing their supply lines. A truck bomb identified south of Sinjar, which was recently liberated from IS by Peshmerga forces, was destroyed by a direct hit by a Hellfire missile fired from a Reaper drone.
BBC World Service Middle East editor Sebastian Usher said the first two missions in Syria had targeted infrastructure, rather than moving targets. The Ministry of Defence said that other missions to collect intelligence had also taken place, with assistance from an RAF Voyager air refuelling tanker during their missions.
The RAF has been carrying out operations against IS in Iraq since previous year. The RAF has been conducting air strikes on IS targets in Iraq since 2014.
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Syria has been embroiled in a bloody armed conflict for almost five years.
