{"id":48335,"date":"2014-10-03T14:38:40","date_gmt":"2014-10-03T14:38:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=1db3aa60d32ddfc0d843d37d51dea35b"},"modified":"2014-10-03T14:38:40","modified_gmt":"2014-10-03T14:38:40","slug":"news-story-pm-confirms-additional-measures-in-support-of-operations-against-isil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=48335","title":{"rendered":"News story: PM confirms additional measures in support of operations against ISIL"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\">\n<p>The Prime Minister announced the deployment of a further 2 <abbr title=\"Royal Air Force\">RAF<\/abbr> <a rel=\"external\" href=\"http:\/\/www.raf.mod.uk\/equipment\/tornado.cfm\">Tornado GR4<\/a> jets to Akrotiri to increase the resilience of the force, which now numbers 8 aircraft. <\/p>\n<p>He also announced a decision to maintain 3 Tornado squadrons in service until March 2016. <a rel=\"external\" href=\"http:\/\/www.raf.mod.uk\/organisation\/2squadron.cfm\">No 2 (Army Cooperation) Squadron<\/a> was due to stand down from service in March 2015 but will now continue to offer precision firepower together with vital intelligence and surveillance.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"image embedded\">\n<div class=\"img\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"An RAF Tornado GR4 \" src=\"https:\/\/assets.digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk\/government\/uploads\/system\/uploads\/image_data\/file\/31369\/MNT-OFFICIAL-20141001-111-354g.jpg\"><\/div><figcaption>An <abbr title=\"Royal Air Force\">RAF<\/abbr> Tornado GR4 at <abbr title=\"Royal Air Force\">RAF<\/abbr> Akrotiri in Cyprus [Picture: Corporal Neil Bryden <abbr title=\"Royal Air Force\">RAF<\/abbr>, Crown copyright]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>An <abbr title=\"Royal Air Force\">RAF<\/abbr> spokesperson said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><abbr title=\"Royal Air Force\">RAF<\/abbr> Tornado GR4s deployed to <a rel=\"external\" href=\"http:\/\/www.raf.mod.uk\/rafakrotiri\/\"><abbr title=\"Royal Air Force\">RAF<\/abbr> Akrotiri<\/a> in mid-August in a purely intelligence and surveillance role.<\/p>\n<p class=\"last-child\">Since then we have been looking at ensuring the resilience of this deployment and, with this in mind, an additional 2 aircraft have been deployed to ensure that we are able to maintain support to the Iraqi government by ensuring operational patrols over Iraq alongside our international allies.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The Royal Navy has also been participating in a support role in the Middle East with warship <a rel=\"external\" href=\"http:\/\/www.royalnavy.mod.uk\/our-organisation\/the-fighting-arms\/surface-fleet\/destroyers\/hms-defender\">HMS Defender<\/a> having been in the Gulf since June. <\/p>\n<p>The ship recently joined the international operation and is providing protection for US Navy aircraft carrier USS George H W Bush and her aircraft as they launch air strikes against <abbr title=\"Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant\">ISIL<\/abbr> targets, supporting Iraqi and Kurdish forces on the ground.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During a visit to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus the Prime Minister thanked RAF air and ground crew for their efforts in tackling ISIL in Iraq.<\/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\/48335"}],"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=48335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48335\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}