A few hours ago, Parliament voted in favor of bombing ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) in Syria. The vote was decided by 397 MPs voting in favor of air strikes versus 223 in opposition. The debate in the House of Commons lasted some ten hours and many good points were made. In the end, however, the right decision was made and now the RAF has the authority to conduct air strikes against the terrorist group in Syria. The RAF had been conducting bombing missions in Iraq since September 2014. In fact, the RAF has conducted over 400 air strikes in Iraq since then. Operation Shader, the code name of the British involvement against ISIL, will now be expanded to Syria. All RAF jets engaged in Operation Shader take off from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. Just hours after the vote was made, four RAF Tornado jets have flown from Cyprus en route to the Middle East, but their destination is not known.
Prime Minister David Cameron's argument for action in Syria was compelling for many reasons. First, ISIL was behind the attack that killed 30 British tourists on a beach in Tunisia. Second, the group beheaded two British citizens last year. Third, Britain remains a major target for ISIL due to the amount of British citizens currently fighting for the group (according to reports, nearly 700 British citizens have traveled to the Middle East to fight with terrorist groups and nearly half have returned to the UK). Fourth, both France and the United States had asked for Britain's contribution in Syria and Cameron believed that not conducting air strikes in Syria would be a sign of weakness and Britain would be relying on its allies for protection. Luckily, Britain can now protect itself because they will now be bombing ISIL targets in Syria and Iraq.
ISIL's command center is in Raqqa, which has been pounded by the US-led coalition of late, especially since the Paris terrorist attacks on November 13. ISIL has been significantly weakened in Iraq, but their footing in Syria has remained stable. So, the decision to attack ISIL in their backyard and base of operations makes complete sense. Britain actually has conducted a drone strike in Syria when two British citizens fighting for Islamic State were killed in early September. The Prime Minister authorized the strike because the two fighters were planning an imminent attack on British soil and needed to be taken out. But now, in addition to drone strikes, there will now be air strikes from RAF jets.
