Michael Sercan Daventry
November 12, 2015•Update: November 12, 2015
LONDON
Britain’s air force announced it spent the past week pounding Daesh positions in northern Iraq ahead of a major Peshmerga offensive launched on Thursday.
The U.K. Ministry of Defense said that the Royal Air Force Tornado and Reaper aircraft had struck Daesh around the city of Tal Afar and provided support to a Kurdish unit on the outskirts of Sinjar – both cities on the main road connecting the major Daesh-held town of Mosul to the Syrian border.
The RAF also supported coalition air patrols and strikes over Iraq by providing refueling services, the ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
Earlier in the day, Kurdish forces claimed to have scored a significant victory in their battle with Daesh in northern Iraq by severing a major supply route after it seized a part the road between Mosul and the Iraqi-Syrian border at Sinjar.
RAF jets have conducted air patrols and strikes against Daesh targets in Iraq since the autumn of 2014.
The U.K. government has said it wants to broaden their mission to cover Daesh in Syria, but such a move would have to be approved by the British parliament and domestic political opinion remains divided over the move.
UK Defense Secretary Michael Fallon told the Daily Telegraph last weekend that it was “morally indefensible” for Britain to be absent from the coalition of countries, including Australia, France and the United States, currently operating over Syria.
