British warplanes bombed an ISIS-controlled oil field in eastern Syria just minutes after lawmakers in London voted to join the U.S.-led aerial campaign against the militants, officials said.
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US President Barack Obama has spoken with David Cameron and welcomed the United Kingdom air strikes, the White House said.
Cameron stressed the “complex and difficult” military action “is going to take time”, ITV News reported.
“So the political process and the action against Daesh to keep us safe at home go hand in hand”.
The operation followed a tumultuous day at Westminster which saw MPs vote decisively to extend air strikes against IS – which had been confined to Iraq – into Syria.
Britain already has eight Tornado fighter jets plus drones involved in the US-led coalition striking IS targets in Iraq, operating out of RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus.
“This strikes a very real blow at the oil and the revenue on which the Daesh terrorists depend”, Defense Secretary Michael Fallon told the BBC, using the Arabic acronym for IS.
Overnight, Tornado GR4s, flying out of RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, flew an armed reconnaissance patrol over eastern Syria, gathering intelligence on terrorist activity.
Ms Mactaggart released a statement prior to the vote which said: “The vicious death cult ISIL/Daesh is raping and torturing anyone who resists their ambitions to control the whole region, but I can not back action when I have no confidence that an air campaign will succeed in ending their murderous efforts to subdue the people of the region to their ends”.
In addition, 6 Typhoon attack jets, often called Euro-fighters, took off from the air force base in Lossiemouth, Scotland, for Cyprus early Thursday morning.
Asked if the air strikes would continue for as long as four years, Mr Hammond said: “I hope it won’t be four years, but I caution that it isn’t going to be months”.
United Kingdom foreign secretary Philip Hammond said that a war against Islamic State could not be won with airpower alone, and noted that a ground assault on Raqqa – the group’s nominal capital- could be years away.
The Scottish National Party’s leader in Westminster, Angus Robertson, said: “We are told that there are 70,000 troops that are opposed to Assad and Daesh which could take the territory Daesh now holds”.
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However, 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.
