Britain Launches First Anti-IS Strikes in Iraq as U.S. Wages '20 Raids in 24 Hours'
British fighter jets on Tuesday bombed an artillery post and an armed truck used by the Islamic State group in Iraq in the Royal Air Force's first strikes in the U.S.-led air campaign.
The defense ministry said two Tornado jets hit the post with a Brimstone missile used against tanks and the vehicle with a 500-pound (230 kilogram) Paveway IV laser-guided bomb.
"Both assessed successful," read one of the tweets.
Another said: "Tornado jets have carried out first air strikes in support of democratic Iraqi government."
It did not say when or where the strikes were carried out but explained they had aided Kurdish troops in the area.
"I can confirm that the RAF were in action today in support of the Iraqi government in northwest Iraq," Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said.
Fallon said the strikes were carried out by two jets from an RAF base in Cyprus.
"They identified and attacked a heavy weapon position that was endangering Kurdish forces and they subsequently attacked an ISIL armed pickup truck in the same area," he said, using an alternative name for the Islamic State group.
The British parliament last week approved a motion to join in a U.S.-led military campaign against IS jihadists who have seized huge swathes of Iraq and Syria in recent months.
The strikes signal the start of Britain's latest military engagement in Iraq after it pulled out all its troops in 2011 following an eight-year conflict.
The government has said it will not send combat troops on the ground or join air strikes in Syria without further parliamentary approval.
British foreign minister Philip Hammond earlier on Tuesday said UK forces would not be "panicked" into dropping bombs in Iraq.
"When we do release our weapons we have to be absolutely sure that they are against ISIL targets, that they are not going to kill innocent Sunni Muslim civilians in areas that are occupied by ISIL," he told the BBC.
"Otherwise we are having the opposite of the effect we are intending to have," he said.
Asked about France joining the U.S.-led coalition before Britain did, he said: "There is nobody who knows anything about air power who is suggesting that the French air force is a more formidable force than the RAF."
France has already carried out two rounds of air strikes.
Meanwhile, U.S. warplanes kept up air raids against Islamic State militants near a contested town on Syria's border with Turkey on Tuesday, part of more than 20 air strikes in 24 hours in Syria and Iraq, the Pentagon said.
In one of the heaviest rounds of bombing since Washington expanded its air war against the Islamic State (IS) group into Syria a week ago, American fighter jets and drone aircraft carried out 11 strikes in Syria and 11 raids in Iraq on Monday and Tuesday, U.S. Central Command (Centcom) said in a statement.
American aircraft hit IS fighters near the Turkish border in an area east of Ain al-Arab, known as Kobane in Kurdish, which has come under mounting threat from the jihadists.
Three strikes near Kobane "destroyed" an IS artillery piece, damaged another and destroyed two rocket launchers, said Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East.
U.S. forces started targeting the IS group around Kobane over the weekend after urgent appeals from Kurdish leaders for help to defend the town.
In northeast Syria, U.S. forces conducted five air raids near the Iraqi border area of Sinjar, targeting an artillery piece, a tank, three armed vehicles, an observation post and four IS "fighting positions," it said.
In eastern Syria, U.S. aircraft carried out two bombing raids near Deir Ezzor, destroying an IS armored vehicle and another vehicle. And northeast of the city of Aleppo, one bombing run destroyed four IS buildings, Centcom said.
In Iraq, where Kurdish forces have launched an offensive against the IS group on three fronts, U.S. military aircraft carried out seven strikes in the country's northwest -- two near Mosul dam, one northwest of Baghdad and one in west Fallujah, according to Central Command.
The seven raids in the northwest destroyed an IS armored vehicle, two transport vehicles, and four armed vehicles while damaging another, it said.
Around Mosul Dam, two strikes destroyed an IS position and an armed vehicle. Northwest of Baghdad, one airstrike destroyed an IS armed vehicle while another strike in west Fallujah struck an IS checkpoint, it said.
All U.S. aircraft safely left the area safely after the air raids, it said.
Human rights monitors say the U.S. air raids have killed and wounded civilians in Syria over the past week but the Pentagon has said it has been unable to confirm the reports.
U.S. planes have flown roughly 4,100 sorties in the air war against the jihadists in Iraq and Syria since August 8, including surveillance flights, refueling runs and bombing raids.
Source: Agence France Presse
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