Second strike sees RAF unleash its ‘full might’ on Isil
Defence Secretary delivers rallying cry to pilots and crew as jets and drone target oilfield and truck
THE “full might” of the RAF has been unleashed on Islamist terrorists for the first time, it was disclosed yesterday, as they were targeted simultaneously by fighter and bomber planes and a missile-firing drone.
The RAF made a second strike on an oilfield in eastern Syria on Friday night at the same time as a Reaper drone scored a direct hit on a truck bomb in Iraq with a Hellfire missile.
Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary disclosed details of the successful mission on a visit to RAF Akrotiri, the Cyprus base for the airstrikes against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil). Addressing a crowd of around 200 pilots and support crew, Mr Fallon warned them to prepare for a “long” campaign against “a new kind of enemy”. He asked the air force to “hit them harder” in a “full-bodied mission” that would not be “short or simple”.
The battle would only “intensify”, he said, using an alternative name for Isil to explain that crews could expect no respite in the coming weeks since “Daesh doesn’t do Christmas”.
The strikes on Friday night were the second since Parliament voted on Wednesday to extend the bombing campaign against Isil from Iraq, where it began in September 2014, to Syria.
It was the first time Typhoon aircraft had been used in the campaign. Six of the jets were sent from RAF Lossiemouth on Thursday together with two more Tornado GR4 fighter-bombers to RAF Akrotiri, where eight Tornados are based. The Syrian strikes again targeted oil infrastructure in an attempt to cut off lucrative revenue streams for Isil. Two Typhoons and two Tornados dropped Paveway IV guided bombs in eight attacks on wellheads on a “very large” Isil-controlled oilfield in Omar.
The Reaper drone identified a truck bomb south of Sinjar. Its pilots, who fly the drone remotely from Britain, destroyed the target with a “direct hit.
Standing in front of one of the Typhoons and flanked on either side by two Tornados, Mr Fallon referred to re- cent terrorist atrocities in Tunisia and Paris, adding that Isil now presented a “very real threat” to Britain.
“We face a new kind of enemy that makes no demands, takes no hostages, doesn’t want to negotiate,” he said. “They did not ask for anything in Paris: they simply stormed into restaurants, bars, a concert hall and tried to kill as many people as quickly as possible. This is a new kind of enemy that we cannot negotiate with. Why? Because it is not what we do that they oppose, it’s what we are.”
Ending his brief speech with a rallying cry, he said: “You go obviously with your orders and all your training. But I want you to know also that you go with the backing of the Parliament and the people of Britain, and you go also with all our good wishes. Thank you.”
After the speech, he told journalists “this campaign is not going to be over quickly”. Referencing an American estimate that airstrikes in Iraq would last at least three years, he said: “We’re not at the halfway point there yet.”
There was no question of British ground troops being deployed, he said, but airstrikes would continue to target Isil commanders as well as their “command-and-control centres”.
The main highway between Iraq and Syria will be targeted, making it harder for Isil to reinforce its strongholds by striking troop carriers and oil transporters. Oilfields would continue to be struck at night, he said, to “minimise” the risk of civilian casualties.
“The supply of arms and personnel and of oil is the infrastructure that supports terrorists,” he said. “We have to cut [it] off so we can slowly start to prevent them reinforcing Mosul or Ramadi in Iraq and we can start to squeeze them back into the heartland around Raqqa [in Syria].”