The UK joins attacks inside Syria at a time when the US-led coalition has embarked on a major strategic shift. After a year of prevarication on the part of the Obama administration, in recent weeks the Pentagon has opted for a combination of trying to chok e Islamic State funding while at the same time inserting a large US special forces team into the Syrian desert east of the Euphrates, to mount operations against Isis – primarily attempting to assassinate its leadership.
But both the US and Britain acknowledge the campaign is still only in its infancy and that they are looking to defeat Isis not in a matter of weeks or months but years. Fallon told the BBC: “This is not going to be quick.” As part of the new focus on an economic squeeze on Isis, four RAF Tornados hit six targets in the Omar oilfield. Over the last few weeks the US and France have also been hitting oilfields and tankers carrying loads (said by the US to be sold to customers in territory held by President Bashar al-Assad and over the border in Turkey).
About an hour after the Commons vote, the four planes took off from the RAF base in Cyprus. Fallon confirmed on Thursday morning that two Tornados and four Typhoons had gone from the UK to Cyprus to reinforce the eight Tornados already there.
Although the strike on the oil industry will hurt Isis finances, oil is only one source of revenue for the group. Fallon described oil as its main revenue source, but that is debatable , Much of its financing comes from heavy taxes imposed on the population under its control, making it almost self-sufficient. Other revenue sources include the sale of antiquities and, the US claims, the sale of slaves. Isis also took an estimated £500m from banks when it occupied Mosul, in Iraq, and other towns and cities. All this makes it much better financed than al-Qaida ever was.
While David Cameron ruled out deploying UK toops on the ground, confining involvement to airstrikes, the US is to send a large contingent of special forces into the empty desert. This will put those forces to the east and north of the stronghold of Raqqa within striking distance.
Their orders are to aggressively pursue the Isis leadership, aiming to decapitate its leadership. The US has already claimed to have killed one of the key controllers of Isis finances. The frontline troops will also act as eyes and ears for the coalition. The UK has about 450 special forces. While they operate largely in secret, it is hard to see how they could be deployed alongside US forces in Syria, given that Cameron has ruled out British boots on the ground.
Another part of the strategy is to cut off the routes that link the Isis cities and towns. In the last few weeks, the road between Raqqa and Mosul, has been cut. UK troops – there are about 200 left in Iraq; the US has 3,500 – are helping with training and advising Kurdish troops in the north and the Iraqi army.
It is all about reducing the size of the area under Isis control, bit by bit. Ramadi in Iraq is encircled. An assault on Mosul is still months away. But Isis is well organised; the backbone of the group are former members of Saddam Hussein’s army, and it is strategically astute.
Outside of Iraq and Syria, Isis has to be confronted too in Libya, Bangladesh, Egypt’s Sinai, Pakistan and in south-east Asia. It is not just a military campaign but a fight against an ideology. The US strategy still looks thin, with too many questions left unanswered. Washington is not claiming to have all the answers, and neither is the UK.
Taking back Iraq and Syria and reducing the influence of Isis elsewhere around the world is going to be hard and bloody. The RAF contribution is just a tiny part of this.
