Four RAF Tornados took off from the British Air Base at Akrotiri early this morning, following a vote in the UK House of Commons to conduct air strikes in Syria.
According to a BBC report, the jets were armed with Paveway IV guided bombs and precision-guided Brimstone missiles.
Six targets were bombed in eastern Syria which lay in an oilfield controlled by ISIL.
UK Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said that the bombing raid had dealt a “real blow” to ISIS financing.
Fallon said: “I can confirm that four British Tornados were in action after the vote last night attacking oilfields in eastern Syria – the Omar oilfields – from which the Daesh terrorists receive a huge part of their revenue.” He added: “This strikes a very real blow at the oil and the revenue on which the Daesh terrorists depend.”
“All four Tornados have now successfully returned and we will be assessing later this morning the actual damage done. They were using Paveway munitions in an area of oilfields where there was simply oil infrastructure in eastern Syria, a long way from Raqqa itself, down near Iraq.
“It’s a very good illustration of a target that is literally one side of the border and couldn’t previously be attacked.”
He also noted that it was likely to be a matter of years, not months of military action to rid the world of ISIL.
Guardian
