13 January 2015 Ministry of Defence
British forces have continued to conduct air operations to assist the Iraqi government in its fight against ISIL.
The terrorist organisation ISIL, known to its Iraqi and Syrian victims as Da’ish, has suffered further losses thanks to Royal Air Force (RAF) air strikes conducted in recent days.
On the evening of Thursday 8 January, a Reaper remotely piloted air system (RPAS) worked in close conjunction with other coalition aircraft to provide air support to Iraqi troops in Anbar province, western Iraq.
The RAF Reaper provided targeting assistance to the fast jets in strikes against ISIL positions, and conducted a successful attack using its own Hellfire missiles.
Late on Friday night, 2 RAF Tornado GR4s, on an armed reconnaissance mission in northern Iraq, were summoned to assist the Kurdish peshmerga.
Da’ish terrorists, who have lost a significant amount of territory to the peshmerga recently, were attempting to mount a local attack on a Kurdish unit.
The GR4s delivered 4 precision strikes using Paveway IV guided bombs to disrupt the attack.
In the early hours of Tuesday 13 January, an RAF Reaper was once again providing air support to the peshmerga in the north of Iraq when an ISIL vehicle was identified being used to reopen a terrorist communications route previously damaged by an attack.
The RPAS hit the vehicle with Hellfire missiles and initial analysis suggests that the vehicle was successfully destroyed.
6 January: At the request of the Iraqi government, British forces took further action against ISIL terrorist targets.
5 January: Reaper and Tornado missions were also flown in the morning. Tornados again patrolled the Al Qaim area, where they destroyed an ISIL excavator vehicle, used to construct fortified positions, with a Brimstone, while a Reaper, scouting ahead of Iraqi troops, spotted an armoured vehicle being moved by ISIL on a heavy equipment transporter. A Hellfire missile scored a direct hit on the armoured vehicle, another Hellfire destroyed the transporter itself, and a third missile struck an ISIL position nearby.
4 January: an RAF Reaper, working in support of Iraqi army units, identified an ISIL vehicle and engaged it with a Hellfire missile. Shortly afterwards, the Reaper discovered an ISIL position close by, and attacked this with another Hellfire.
2 January: in the early hours a RAF Tornado GR4 armed reconnaissance patrol located an ISIL armoured personnel carrier to the east of Al Qaim, and conducted a successful strike with a Brimstone missile. Later in the day, a coalition surveillance aircraft observed ISIL positions concealed within woods north-west of Ramadi and another Tornado mounted an attack with 2 Paveway IV precision guided bombs.
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