RAF Has 'Special Capabilities' In IS Fight

The RAF's role in the campaign against Islamic State is tactically and strategically important thanks to its "special capabilities" and was not just symbolic, says a coalition spokesman.

Tornado jets attacked an oilfield controlled by the militants in Syria hours after MPs voted to back UK bombing raids.

Colonel Steve Warren told Sky News: "The Tornado is a fantastic all-weather aircraft", adding the RAF has "tremendous reconnaissance capabilities" and will help to "degrade the enemy's war-making machine".

The Sunni extremists have raised millions of pounds from oilfields since it seized large swathes of Syria and Iraq last year and he said the coalition has spent months working on cutting its funding.

The UK is one of a number of countries, including the US, France and Russia, which are bombing IS in Syria. Shia-led Iranian forces are also fighting IS there.

But Moscow has also attacked other rebel groups that oppose President Bashar al Assad and Col Warren criticised its air campaign as "reckless and indiscriminate".

He said: "Every bomb the Russians drop only prolongs Assad's hold on power, which only results in prolonging the suffering of the Syrian people, and eventually helping sustain IS."

Col Warren also claimed the coalition had killed tens of thousands of IS fighters in Syria and Iraq since its campaign begun last year "with very little damage to civilians" due to precision bombs.

He also said the SunnBut he admitted airstrikes would not be enough and there would have to be ground forces, citing 70,000 moderate armed Syrians, although this figure has been disputed.

And he pointed out US Secretary of State John Kerry was involved in diplomatic talks on the future of the country.

Meanwhile, former NATO Supreme allied commander Wesley Clark, told Sky News there needed to be more political and diplomatic efforts along with the military campaign.

He said: "What ideally needs to be done is all of the states in the region need to reach an agreement on the future construct of Syria.i insurgents had been "pushed out" of 30% of the territory that had held Is it going to be an Iranian satellite state or is it going to be carved up into enclaves and have a federal structure? Will Christians, Sunnis, Allawites and other minority sects be able to live there peacefully?

"And will it be a state that supports peace in the region or will it be a platform for further attacks and Iranian expansionism. This needs to be hashed out at political level and then the parties in the region need to go after IS."

He said until that happened, the military action was just a way of distracting and disrupting IS but it was not decisive.

And warned that ground troops could not be deployed until a governing structure was in place "and we don't have that".since the first half of 2014.