UK ready for strikes on Syria
Bombers primed to pound Isis HQ after MPs’ ballot
BRITISH warplanes were poised to begin blitzing Islamic State terror nuts in Syria after last night’s nerve-jangling House of Commons vote.
BRITAIN was last night poised to start pounding Syria hours after MPs voted on whether to bomb Islamic State in its own backyard.
GR4 Tornados were on stand-by to be scrambled from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus.
David Cameron has ordered the RAF to target Isis leaders and command hideouts.
Their No1 target will be Sheikh Abu Muhammad al-Adnani – a Syrian preacher who heads the group’s “international attacks” unit.
He is understood to have been behind the recent Paris gun and suicide bomb rampage.
Military sources said virtually the entire UK air force will end up involved in the Syrian mission.
The Prime Minister told Parliament the action was necessary to defeat the “women-raping, Muslim-murdering, medieval monsters hijacking Islam for their warped ends”.
He said: “These people are not Muslims, they are outlaws from Islam. We must stand with our Muslim friends here and around the world as they reclaim their religion from these terrorists. Far from an attack on Islam, we are engaged in a defence of Islam. “Far from the risk of radicalising British Muslims by acting, failing to act would actually be to betray British Muslims and the wider religion of Islam in its very hour of need.”
Mr Cameron said Isis posed a “fundamental threat to our society”.
Announcing a probe into terrorism funding in the UK, he said 800 Brits had travelled to Syria to join Isis. He also announced he will now refer to Isis as Daesh, a term which means Islamic State but is hated by Isis because it sounds like an Arabic word for “crushes underfoot”.
Mr Cameron added in the past 12 months, British security services had foiled seven terror attacks in the UK.
He said the aim of aerial bombardment was to clear the way for 70,000 moderate Syrian opposition fighters on the ground to reclaim Isis-held territory.
He refused at least eight times to apologise for branding those who voted against the airstrikes “terrorist sympathisers” during an earlier meeting with Tory MPs.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who opposed the action but granted his MPs a free vote, branded the airstrike plans “reckless and half-baked”.
During a heated debate 157 MPs addressed the Commons.
Mr Corbyn said the PM wanted to “bomb first, talk later” and the “mission creep” would “put British servicemen and women in harm’s way and almost inevitably lead to the deaths of innocents”.
Labour MP Stella Creasy was forced to leave midway after staff in her Walthamstow, east London, constituency said they were being hassled by anti-war protesters.
They tried to confront her at home, with one claiming it was acceptable because “she has no children to upset”.
Ms Creasy and other women Labour MPs were also sent pictures of dead children. She told trolls to “do one” and threatened to call in police.
Airstrikes will trigger a massive homeland security operation to stop Isis attacks here.