{"id":73285,"date":"2016-08-17T09:16:47","date_gmt":"2016-08-17T09:16:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=744d88684715dc50a885c630fdb46ab2"},"modified":"2016-08-17T09:16:47","modified_gmt":"2016-08-17T09:16:47","slug":"news-story-armed-forces-minister-welcomes-liberation-of-manbij","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=73285","title":{"rendered":"News story: Armed Forces Minister welcomes liberation of Manbij"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\">\n<p>Mike Penning, Minister of State for the Armed Forces, has welcomed the liberation of Manbij from Daesh.<\/p>\n<p>The loss of the northern Syrian town is the latest setback for the terrorist group, which has seen its territory, financial resources and leadership increasingly dwindling.<\/p>\n<p>RAF airstrikes supported Syrian democratic forces on the ground over recent weeks, including providing close air support close to Manbij and striking at Daesh defensive positions in the town.<\/p>\n<p>UK intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability also supported Coalition strikes, with UK Reaper flying over 500 hours, providing key information on targets to Coalition partners.<\/p>\n<p>Minister for the Armed Forces Mike Penning said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Manbij\u2019s liberation is a significant development in the fight against Daesh in Syria.<\/p>\n<p>The RAF supported the liberation with airstrikes over recent weeks, alongside our Coalition partners.<\/p>\n<p class=\"last-child\">We thank all our armed forces for their ongoing commitment and bravery in this vitally important fight.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h2 id=\"detail\">Detail<\/h2>\n<p>Airstrikes from RAF Typhoons and Reapers contributed to Coalition strikes in support of freeing Manbij.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, a Reaper patrolled over the town and cleared two groups of extremists engaged in a fire fight with the Syrian moderates.<\/p>\n<p>The week before, a pair of Typhoons conducted a successful precision strike on a fortified Daesh defensive position.<\/p>\n<p>In July, Typhoons destroyed a network of fortified positions on the south western edge of the town, held by a large number of Daesh extremists. A Reaper also conducted two attacks with Hellfire missiles on Daesh fighters and also provided targeting assistance to a coalition air strike.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Freeing of the strategic town in northern Syria is the latest gain in the fight against Daesh.<\/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\/73285"}],"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=73285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}