David Cameron To “Make The Case” For Syria Airstrikes This Week

On a visit to Paris on Monday, British Prime Minister David Cameron also offered air-to-air refueling services, saying he was convinced Britain should carry out military air strikes alongside France and would be recommending Britain’s parliament vote through such measures.

Mr Cameron acknowledged that airstrikes alone would not be enough to defeat IS, but said they would help moderate Syrian forces which deploy an estimated 70,000 troops on the ground.

In the wake of the horrific terror attacks in Paris, France has stepped up its bombing campaign against IS and is hoping to build a stronger coalition of nations to join action in Syria, including Britain. It concluded there should be no extension of air strikes without “a coherent worldwide strategy that has a realistic chance of defeating Isil and of ending the civil war”.

Mr Cameron said that vote was defeated then and thousands had gone on to be killed by chemical weapons and barrel bombs but this issue was about striking ISIS.

A Commons vote is widely expected next week.

“No-one predicted ISIL’s rise and we should not expect that it’s somehow impossible to bring them to an end”.

The Prime Minister will tell MPs he believes there is a need to strike at the terrorists in their Syrian stronghold as well as in Iraq, where the RAF is already hitting IS targets with bombs and missiles.

Thirty Conservative lawmakers voted against the motion for military intervention in Syria in August 2013.

“The challenge for the prime minister is to demonstrate that any proposed British military action against ISIL in Syria is framed within a wider strategy”, Dan Jarvis, a Labour lawmaker who’s a former British Army officer, said in an e-mailed statement.

“So I want the British people to know they have a government that understands national security and that we will take whatever actions are necessary to keep our country safe”, Cameron wrote in an article for the Telegraph.

Jeremy Corbyn has written to his MPs to say that he can not support air strikes in Syria.

A political settlement was clearly needed in Syria, he said, but added that the United Kingdom should not wait for a settlement before acting.

This will come two years after a previous vote for military action in Syria failed after the main opposition Labour Party voted against.

“The only way to deal with that reality is to address the threat we face and to do so now”, he said.

French jets taking off from the country’s flagship in the eastern Mediterranean destroyed targets in Ramadi and Mosul in Iraq on Monday in support of Iraqi forces on the ground, the French armed forces said in a statement.

Sky News’ Political Editor Faisal Islam says Mr Jarvis’ comments will give Number 10 confidence.