Air campaign ‘will take a long time’
The ministry of defence confirmed that the third mission to be carried out by Tornado GR4 fighter bombers since they were given the green light to commence air strikes had ended with them returning to their base at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus with their weapons payloads intact.
Mr Fallon warned that such operations could continue for weeks or even months.
“This is not a weekend campaign,” he told BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend.
“This is going to take a long time.”
In the face of growing criticism from former senior military commanders, David Cameron insisted that there was a “comprehensive strategy” in place for defeating IS which has seized large swathes of Iraq and Syria.
The prime minister said he had “a lot of sympathy” for calls to extend British operations into Syria as well as Iraq, but had been constrained by the need to maintain a political consensus for UK military action.
Lord Richards of Herstmonceux, a former head of the armed forces who stepped down as chief of the defence staff last year, became the most senior figure to speak out when he said that the militants would not be defeated by air attacks alone and that Western ground troops would be needed.
“Ultimately you need a land army to achieve the objectives we’ve set ourselves — all air will do is destroy elements of IS, it won’t achieve our strategic goal,” he told The Sunday Times .
“The only way to defeat IS is to take back land they are occupying which means a conventional military operation.
“The only way to do it effectively is to use western armies, but I understand the political resistance.”
Speaking on BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show, Mr Cameron accepted that “boots on the ground” were needed, but said they had to be local Iraqi and Kurdish forces, not British.
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