Cameron aware British pilots were bombing Syria

David Cameron was aware RAF pilots were taking part in bombing raids over Syria despite MPs having voted against Britain carrying out strikes in the country.

Downing Street said the prime minister knew that a small number of aircrew were embedded with US and Canadian forces and “what they were doing”.

The news came amid growing pressure for a statement to parliament after the activity emerged in response to a Freedom of Information request.

Currently, parliament has only authorised UK forces to attack IS targets in neighbouring Iraq, where they are operating at the invitation of the government in Baghdad.

The prime minister’s spokeswoman told a briefing for journalists: “The prime minister was aware that UK personnel were involved in US operations and what they were doing”.

The spokeswoman said the policy of embedding UK personnel with foreign forces had been in place since the 1950s and was “well known”. The Ministry of Defence had been asked about the issue before, she insisted. She said “upward of a dozen” Britons were embedded with other nations engaged in the counter-IS campaign — although currently none of them are pilots.

Tory backbencher John Baron, who opposed air strikes in Iraq, said that ministers must come to the Commons to explain what had happened. “We had a major vote. There should be sensitivity on this issue, and we should be very sensitive to the fact that we have military personnel participating, in effect, in military intervention,” he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

“Those individuals should be withdrawn from the embedded programme whilst this vote holds sway, while it still has authority, until we vote again.

“This is, at the end of the day, what parliamentary democracy is all about, regardless of the pros and cons of military intervention.”

New Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said the involvement of RAF pilots in air strikes without the approval of parliament was “a breach of trust with the British people” that would simply play into the hands of IS . “They desperately want the West to attack them and to be seen to attack them. We are utterly playing in to their hands if we do this,” Farron told Sky News.

Labour, which recently indicated it could be prepared to back a fresh vote on extending air strikes into Syria, said that it would be calling on ministers to make a Commons statement on Monday about the role British pilots had played.

Details of the involvement of UK aircrew were disclosed by the Ministry of Defence in response to a Freedom of Information request from the pressure group Reprieve.