On Thursday (NZT) British lawmakers voted by 397 to 223 to launch air strikes against Islamic State militants in Syria, after more than 10 hours of debate.
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Royal Air Force Tornado jets from their base in Akrotiri in Cyprus carried out air strikes on Omar oil fields in east Syria under the control of the rebels, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said.
Mr Fallon said the Tornadoes had been conducting sorties over Iraq on a nightly basis and were authorised to strike targets in Syria once the result of the Commons vote was known.
Mr Baron said the short-term effect of United Kingdom air strikes in Syria would be “marginal”.
The RAF has been launching strikes against IS targets in Iraq since 2014. In August 2013, Parliament rejected airstrikes against the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government after it had used chemical weapons on its own people.
Meanwhile, prosecutors in Belgium said yesterday they have charged two new suspects – a 20-year-old Frenchman and a 28-year-old Belgian – in connection with the Nov 13 Paris attacks, bringing to eight the number of people held in the case.
Britain’s Ministry of Defense says its jets struck at oil facilities in Syria, hours after Parliament voted for Britain to join allies in bombarding the Islamic State group.
“He’s not just making us a target for Momentum and Stop The War, he’s making us a target for home-grown jihadists”, a shadow cabinet minister said. “If they are Labour Party members, we have disciplinary processes and they will take place”.
“Rather than splits, a much more favourable alternative might be for the Labour Party to have a leader elected by MPs and a leader in the country elected by the entire membership”, said Mr Field in a letter to The Independent. It’s also planning to commit up to 1,200 soldiers to support the worldwide coalition fighting the Islamic State group.
“It appears that Allah made a decision to punish the ruling clique of Turkey by depriving them of wisdom and judgment”, Putin said on Thursday during the Russian president’s annual state of the nation speech.
Britain has already bombed Islamic State targets in Iraq and deployed unmanned drones in Syria. Around a third of Labour lawmakers defied Corbyn to vote yes.
“I think we know that without the ability to find some ground forces that are prepared to take on Daesh, this will not be won completely from the air”, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said at a meeting in Belgrade of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
US President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande said they welcomed Britain’s move.
Russian Federation and the United States also disagree about tactics in Syria, with Moscow backing Assad and Washington saying he must go.
Thousands of Russian citizens from Chechnya, Dagestan and elsewhere have joined the Islamic State group in Syria. Mr. Cameron, however, refused to apologise.
As the debate raged in Parliament, campaign group Stop the War Coalition and other groups protested at the Parliament Square.
Labour leader Corbyn said that “to oppose another reckless and half-baked intervention isn’t pacifism”.
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Mr Livingstone later defended his comments, telling the BBC: “Nobody should be doing abusive tweets or anything like that, but people voicing their genuine belief that they would rather have an MP who supports the leader rather than undermines him should be free to say that”. “We must not use past mistakes as an excuse for indifference or inaction”.
