Tornado and Typhoon jets bombed an Islamic State position north of Mosul and destroyed a stronghold in northern Iraq.
It has been revealed that Royal Air Force Tornado GR4s, supported by a Voyager air refuelling tanker, have been patrolling over northern Iraq this week.
North of Mosul, an Islamic State held building was identified in the path of a Kurdish advance. This was successfully targeted by Tornado jets using a Paveway IV guided bomb.
The aircraft again operated over northern Iraq later in the week using a Paveway IV bomb to destroy an Islamic State held structure, along with a terrorist vehicle, a few miles to the south of Bashiqah.
Additionally, a flight of Typhoon FGR4s flew an armed reconnaissance mission along the Euphrates valley. They identified and struck a mortar team on the northern bank of the river with a Paveway IV.
Operation Shader is the operational code name given to the British participation in the ongoing military intervention against the Islamic State. The operation began in Iraq on the 26th of September 2014, following a formal request for assistance by the Iraqi government.
Prior to this, the Royal Air Force had been engaged in a humanitarian relief effort over Mount Sinjar, which involved multiple aid airdrops by transport aircraft and the airlifting of displaced refugees.
In October 2014, the intervention had extended onto Syria with the Royal Air Force only mandated to conduct surveillance flights over the country. In December that year, the House of Commons approved British airstrikes against IS in Syria.
The UK is one of several countries directly involved in the ongoing Syrian conflict that started in March 2011. By June 2016, the Ministry of Defence had announced that over 1,000 personnel were engaged in theater and that the Royal Air Force had conducted around 900 airstrikes, flying over 2,200 sorties, killing almost 1,000 IS fighters.
That would be ‘theatre’.