{"id":48162,"date":"2014-09-30T16:43:00","date_gmt":"2014-09-30T16:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=7802edc76de1867ef02e901a9dc0652a"},"modified":"2014-09-30T16:43:00","modified_gmt":"2014-09-30T16:43:00","slug":"news-story-raf-conducts-first-air-strikes-of-iraq-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=48162","title":{"rendered":"News story: RAF conducts first air strikes of Iraq mission"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\">\n<p>This action is part of the international coalition\u2019s operations to support the democratic Iraqi government.<\/p>\n<p>In the course of an armed reconnaissance mission from <abbr title=\"Royal Air Force\">RAF<\/abbr> Akrotiri, 2 <a rel=\"external\" href=\"http:\/\/www.raf.mod.uk\/equipment\/tornado.cfm\">Tornados<\/a> were tasked to assist Kurdish troops in north west Iraq who were under attack from <abbr title=\"Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant\">ISIL<\/abbr> terrorists.<\/p>\n<p>On arriving overhead, the <abbr title=\"Royal Air Force\">RAF<\/abbr> patrol, using the <a rel=\"external\" href=\"http:\/\/www.raf.mod.uk\/equipment\/litening-3.cfm\">Litening III targeting pod<\/a>, identified an <abbr title=\"Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant\">ISIL<\/abbr> heavy weapon position which was engaging Kurdish ground forces.<\/p>\n<p>One <a rel=\"external\" href=\"http:\/\/www.raf.mod.uk\/equipment\/paveway4.cfm\">Paveway IV<\/a> guided bomb was used to attack the <abbr title=\"Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant\">ISIL<\/abbr> position.<\/p>\n<p>Following this engagement, the patrol identified an <abbr title=\"Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant\">ISIL<\/abbr> armed pick-up truck in the same area and conducted an attack on the vehicle using a Brimstone missile.<\/p>\n<p>An initial assessment indicates that both precision strikes were successful.<\/p>\n<p>Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Halting the advance of <abbr title=\"Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant\">ISIL<\/abbr> and helping the Iraqi government turn it back, and helping the Iraqi army and Kurdish forces to do that, is a huge task and is going to be a long campaign.<\/p>\n<p class=\"last-child\">But the <abbr title=\"Royal Air Force\">RAF<\/abbr> have been flying day and night since Parliament gave that authority last Friday and they have been flying important missions, gathering intelligence, deterrents against <abbr title=\"Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant\">ISIL<\/abbr> terrorism, driving them back from the villages, as well as being there in close support when they are tasked to go down and help, in particular fighting, and that\u2019s now what they\u2019ve done today.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>For more information see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/news\/isil-uk-government-response\"><abbr title=\"Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant\">ISIL<\/abbr>: UK government response<\/a> page on GOV.UK<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Royal Air Force Tornado GR4 aircraft have been in action over Iraq today in the fight against ISIL.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48162"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48162"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48204,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48162\/revisions\/48204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}