LONDON - British military forces have provided further extensive air and training support to Iraqi forces fighting ISIL terrorists.
While coalition teams, including British instructors, continue to run training programs to help the Iraqi army and Kurdish peshmerga build more effective capabilities, Royal Air Force aircraft have continued to play a significant role in the air campaign supporting the Iraqi units fighting on the front line.
On May 19, a Reaper and two Tornado GR4s patrolled northern Iraq, where the peshmerga were conducting offensive operations against ISIL terrorists. The Reaper identified a series of fortified positions; it successfully attacked one bunker with a Hellfire missile, then helped direct three attacks by the Tornado GR4s, which used Paveway IV precision guided bombs to destroy an artillery position and two other bunkers. The Tornados then destroyed a heavy machine-gun position in a building which had open fired on the Kurdish troops with a highly accurate Paveway attack. The Reaper, meanwhile, conducted a further attack of its own, destroying a heavily armed vehicle moving at high speed. The same day also saw another RAF Reaper operating in Anbar province, where it used a Hellfire to destroy a mortar which was firing on Iraqi troops.
On May 20, Tornados struck a weapons store with Paveways and operations in northern Iraq continued the next day with the Tornados destroying an ISIL heavy weapons position in a building. They then attacked a further weapons cache in a tunnel and in the course of this strike, a camouflaged position nearby was spotted by the aircrew, confirmed as hostile, and was also bombed.
In the west of the country, Reapers continued to provide overwatch to the Iraqi forces in Anbar province. On May 22, a Reaper successfully engaged terrorists burying improvised explosive devices next to a road. The aircraft then supported a strike mounted by coalition fast jets on an ISIL-held building.
May 24 saw a Reaper in the same area destroy an ISIL armored vehicle which was in close combat with Iraqi forces with a Hellfire and then provided surveillance support to four successful strikes by coalition aircraft on ISIL buildings and a bulldozer which had been packed with explosives for an attack on the Iraqi troops.
You have 0 item(s) in your cart