Defence secretary claims progress in Isis battle as surveillance role extended
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Version 0 of 1. The defence secretary, Michael Fallon, has hailed Britain’s year-long air campaign against Islamic State as a success, saying the RAF has contributed to halting the group’s advance and reclaiming about a quarter of the territory it had taken. Fallon announced that deployment of the Sentinel aircraft conducting surveillance over Syria would be extended into 2016, a gesture underlining the government’s intention to play a bigger part in the fight against Isis in Syria. “Now we must build on this progress. We will not let up until we have defeated this barbaric terrorist organisation,” said Fallon. The Commons, having voted against military action in Syria two years ago, is expected to vote on airstrikes in Syria after parliament resumes following the conference season. Fallon’s statement comes on the first anniversary of parliament’s decision to go ahead with the first UK airstrikes against Isis in Iraq, and against the backdrop of a row in the US over the impact of the US-led campaign. About 50 US defence intelligence analysts working at the US central command Centcom in Florida, where the campaign in Syria and Iraq is being co-ordinated, are reported to have protested that the successes against Isis are being exaggerated. The analysts claim reports are being tampered with by senior officials to adhere to the White House and Pentagon line that the west is winning the war and Isis has been seriously weakened. In private, senior British military staff offer a similarly bleak assessment of how the war is going. While they say the air campaign is helping to “contain and degrade” Isis, they acknowledge that it can only be defeated in the end by ground troops. Neither the US nor the UK is contemplating putting troops into a combat role and there is little sign of regional forces becoming involved or of a credible rebel force emerging. According to the Ministry of Defence, the RAF has flown 1,300 missions over Iraq and Syria over the past year. Fallon said in his statement: “The fight against [Isis] is our top operational priority and Britain is playing a vital role. Our armed forces have conducted more than 300 strikes, flown almost a third of all coalition surveillance flights and trained over 2,000 [Iraqi] troops. “In 2014, [Isis] enjoyed near total freedom of movement across much of Iraq but we’ve helped stop the jihadist advance, reclaiming a quarter of [Isis-held] territory.” The amount of territory reclaimed is a contentious matter. Although Iraqi forces retook Tikrit north of Baghdad this year, they have failed to retake Mosul and have since lost Ramadi. Until a Commons vote in favour, the RAF is forbidden from conducting airstrikes in Syria, but it is allowed to fly surveillance missions over the country. The Sentinel, which conducts long-range battlefield surveillance identifying and tracking targets over great distances, has been flying three missions a week since April. The British argument for extending the campaign to Syria is that Isis does not recognise the border between Syria and Iraq and that its command and control centre is in the Syrian city of Raqqa. The question is whether the UK can add anything that the US is not already doing. One of the biggest problems is lack of targets in both Iraq and Syria. After suffering casualties in the first few months of the air campaign, Isis fighters are more careful about moving around in the open. That seems to be borne out in the daily briefings from the Pentagon. On Thursday it recorded four airstrikes in Syria by coalition fighter jets, bombers and drones. “Near Hasakah, two airstrikes struck separate [Isis] tactical units and destroyed an Isil motorcycle; near Raqqa, an airstrike struck an [Isis] tactical unit and destroyed an [Isis] vehicle; and near Mar’a, an airstrike destroyed one [Isis] towed artillery piece,” said the briefing. Toby Dodge, director of the Middle East centre at the London School of Economics, described the UK contribution as “window-dressing on the larger US campaign”. Asked about the extent of territory recaptured, Dodge said: “The incoming commandant of the US marines says it is a stalemate in Iraq, and I would agree.” |