Cameron: We must be ready for long haul in Syria campaign

BRITAIN should be braced for a lengthy military campaign against Islamic State, David Cameron warned last night.

As RAF planes continued to pound targets in Syria, the PM said the bombing campaign would take time and would require patience and persistence.

At the same time, Downing Street left the door open to sending soldiers to Syria to carry out non-combat roles. Mr Cameron’s official spokesman refused to rule out sending troops to help with training and infrastructure.

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon told the Mail that once there was a new government in Syria – post President Bashar al-Assad – British troops could start training in the country.

The disclosure will raise concerns about mission creep only a day after MPs voted to extending bombing from Iraq into Syria.

Within hours of the vote on Wednesday night, four British warplanes blitzed Syria’s largest oil field using seven deadly 500lb bombs.

Last night two more Tornados – capable of carrying precision Brimstone missiles which can fire at moving targets travelling up to 70mph – took to the skies from Cyprus as the bombing onslaught continued.

Following the strikes, Mr Cameron said he welcomed the strong support across Parliament with MPs from six different parties backing ‘this necessary action’.

He added: ‘We are going to need to be patient and persistent. This is going to take time. It is complex, it is difficult what we are asking our pilots to do, and our thoughts should be with them and their families.’

The Prime Minister has insisted there will be no ‘combat’ forces on the ground in Syria. That was spelled out explicitly in the motion passed by MPs on Wednesday which cleared the way for bombing.

But, on the eve of the debate, Mr Cameron faced calls from William Hague and Lord Dannatt, the former head of the Army, to leave open the option of extending the campaign to fighting on the ground.

Former foreign secretary Lord Hague, one of the Prime Minister’s closest confidants, said Britain ‘should not rule out… the use of perhaps small specialist ground forces from western nations in the future if that helps to tip the balance on the ground’.

Lord Dannatt, a former personal military adviser to Mr Cameron, said: ‘We may have to face again the unpalatable option of deploying western combat units on the ground at some point in the future’.

Yesterday Downing Street was asked about the prospect of British troops going to Syria in non-frontline roles. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: ‘The Prime Minister has been quite clear that there are no plans for British troops on the ground.

‘We’ve always been clear that we will support the coalition but the motion in front of the House yesterday was very clear.

‘It very clearly stipulated no combat troops.’ Asked to rule out training missions, the spokesman said: ‘There is no plan to do anything on that front.’

On Monday, in advance of the vote, Mr Fallon told the Mail : ‘Once we have a new government, post Assad, yes of course we will look at whether we can train a new Syrian army that will properly be integrated into the fight against Isil, but that would all be after new settlement in Syria.’

He also admitted that British troops had already pulled out of Turkey and Jordan in recent months after a US-led training programme failed to find enough Syrian moderates to help in the fight.

He said: ‘Whilst the US are reevaluating the programme, our own programme has been suspended.’

‘Tip the balance on the ground’

Mr Fallon also said it would be a long campaign which would take years. He added: ‘The American estimate of the campaign in Iraq, which began last year, was that it would last at least three years and

‘Significant

impact’

we’re not halfway through that yet. The Prime Minister has been pretty clear that this is going to be a long campaign to ensure that Daesh (IS) are thrown out of Iraq and that they are degraded and defeated in eastern Syria. This is not going to be quick.’

Yesterday a Ministry of Defence spokesman said the bombing raids would have a ‘significant impact on Daesh’s ability to extract the oil to fund their terrorism’. They said the aircraft’s sensors suggested ‘no civilians were in the proximity of the targets’.

There are currently some 120 British military personnel in Iraq helping train forces fighting IS. More soldiers were sent to the region earlier this year to train ‘moderate’ Syrian forces.

But both the American and British soldiers abandoned the training programme designed to ready 5,000 Syrians for battle several months ago. In an embarrassment for Coalition nations, only around 100 were thought to have actually been trained because they had struggled to find recruits untainted by extremist affiliations.

The first batch of about 50 who were trained were kidnapped by Al Qaeda and the second lot of around 30 ‘betrayed the US’ and defected with their weapons to extremist group Jabhat al-Nusra.