UK begins airstrikes against ISIS in Syria, targets oil fields

Britain on Thursday began bombing Islamic State strongholds in Syria targeting the oil fields under its control, hours after a crucial parliamentary vote backed military airstrikes against the terror group.

Four Tornados took off from the Royal Air Force (RAF) base in Akrotiri, Cyprus, shortly after the House of Commons vote gave the go-ahead for Britain to assist in the US-led bombing of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The strikes targeted the Omar oil fields in eastern Syria, which is under ISIS control, UK defence secretary Michael Fallon said.

“I can confirm that British tornadoes were in action attacking oil fields in eastern Syria...and were successful,” he said.

Fallon had personally approved the targets ahead of the House of Commons vote on Wednesday, when MPs by a vote of 397 against 223 backed UK military action against ISIS in Syria after a 10-hour debate.

The first Typhoon jet fighters left RAF Lossiemouth in Moray, Scotland, for Cyprus to join the airstrikes, an hour after the Commons vote.

Fallon said the UK Ministry of Defence would be assessing the damage done by the bombing later, but the aim was to strike “a very real blow on the oil and revenue on which Daesh (another name for ISIS) depends”. 

The RAF has been carrying out operations against ISIS in Iraq since last year. British Prime Minister David Cameron told Parliament on Wednesday that the UK will be a safer place if the country joins its allies in air strikes on Syria.

“The question before the House is how we keep the British people safe from the threat posed by ISIS. This is not about whether we want to fight terrorism, it’s about how best we do that,” he told MPs during the House of Commons debate.

“We should answer the call from our allies. The action we propose is legal, it is necessary and it is the right thing to do to keep our country safe,” he said.

The Conservative Party leader was repeatedly asked to apologise by Opposition Labour MPs for comments he reportedly made to fellow Conservative MPs on Tuesday, asking them not to vote with “a bunch of terrorism sympathisers”.

Cameron refused to do so, saying, “I respect people who come to a different view from the government. I am not pretending that the answers are simple, the situation in Syria is incredibly complex”.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn opposed the bombing but had given MPs a free vote amid divisions within his own ranks. 

Cameron, during the debate, stressed on the terror threat from the ISIS. “The question is this: do we work with our allies to degrade and destroy this threat and do we go after these terrorists in their heartlands? Or do we sit back and wait for them to attack us?” he asked the House. Corbyn’s aides believed as many as 90 Labour MPs could back the government and with both the Democratic Unionist Party and the Liberal Democrats the backing action, Cameron was expected to win the parliamentary approval for the UK to intervene militarily in the four-year conflict in Syria.