British RAF jets have made their first strikes on Syrian targets, just hours after MPs voted in favour of intervention by 397 to 223.
According to a BBC source, four Tornado jets left a British RAF base in Cyprus in the early hours of this morning to carry out air strikes on six targets in an oilfield under IS control.
After more than 10 hours of tense debate in Parliament on Wednesday, members of parliament voted in favour of the air strikes, with Prime Minister David Cameron urging MPs that the use of British high-precision, laser-guided Brimstone missiles could make a real difference in cutting off IS’s financial sources and depriving them of funding.
However, the move has been met with opposition by many, with Professor Malcolm Chalmers of military think-tank the Royal United Services Institute saying to the AFP news agency that, “it will not make a big operational difference. It is important symbolically, useful operationally, but not transformative.”
The British vote was immediately commended by US President Barack Obama, who said that America would “look forward to having British forces flying with the coalition over Syria”.
03/12/2015