They “did not stack up”, he said, adding that Mr. Cameron had failed to convince that there were “credible ground forces” able to take back IS territory under cover of British air strikes.
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“We are going to need to be patient and persistent”. “We must not use past mistakes as an excuse for indifference or inaction”.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said that four Tornado aircraft operating out of RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus hit targets in an oilfield at Omar, close to Syria’s border with Iraq, in the early hours of Thursday morning.
Cameron also refused to apologise to opposition MPs for reportedly telling fellow Conservatives in a private meeting ahead of the vote they should not side with “a bunch of terrorist sympathisers”.
“They might bomb and they might carry out air strikes, but it won’t win the fight against terrorism”.
In reality, it is going to take time to test the truth, or otherwise, of those statements, but what is much clearer is the damage the Commons vote and the military action have caused at home, mainly to the Labour party.
Mr Cameron was happy that support in Parliament for “this necessary action” was so strong, with six different parties backing the decision.
As Stella Creasy became the first MP to face a direct threat of de-selection in her Walthamstow constituency, former London Mayor Ken Livingstone, who was recently appointed by the party leadership to co-chair a major defence policy review, stoked anger among MPs by publicly endorsing such attempts against those who backed air strikes in Syria.
They deployed four jets, which took off from the Akrotiri air base in Cyprus.
Officials say seven plots have been foiled by intelligence services in the previous year alone.
Mr Erdogan attacked Russian claims that his family was involved as “immoral” after Russian military chiefs publicly accused the Turkish government of funnelling millions of dollars in illicit oil revenues to Isil terrorists in Syria and Iraq. “They attack us because of who we are, not because of what we do”.
The mission to target so-called Islamic State militants in Syria could take “some time” and will require persistence, he added.
“These terrorists are plotting to kill us and radicalise our children right now”, he said.
The US-led coalition has recently stepped up attacks on the Isis-controlled oil industry, a source of revenue for the group, but has struggled with targets in the Isis stronghold in Raqqa, Syria, where Isis members are nearly indistinguishable from the civilian population.
“The Tornados were successful in striking these targets…” Previously, the small British contingent participated in strikes on Iraq, but not Syria.
“What was really important about the vote last night was that it confirmed that Britain is a serious ally”, said Mr Fallon.
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“It is understandable that the British government doesn’t want to stand by as IS continues to terrorise or as Syria continues to be consumed by chaos but reaching for a quick military option like the one proposed is not the answer”, they wrote in an article for Prospect magazine.
