United Kingdom carries out 2nd airstrike against Islamic State oilfields

Mr Fallon said the Tornadoes had been conducting sorties over Iraq on a nightly basis and were authorised to strike targets in Syria once the result of the Commons vote was known.

Labour MP Wes Streeting – who voted against air strikes – said Mr Corbyn was not “showing strong enough leadership” over what he said had been “a well-organised, systematic, well-resourced attempt to bully Labour MPs into voting against air strikes in Syria”.

“So the political process and the action against Daesh to keep us safe at home go hand in hand”. Moscow has been carrying out a separate aerial campaign against the extremist group since September 30, at the request of Syrian President Bashar Assad. “The West’s view is illusional”. Britain is well up the hit-list for Daesh terrorists.

Britain’s debate over extending strikes to Syria showed how fraught the subject has become for Western politicians, with no easy answers to a civil war that has produced the biggest refugee crisis since World War Two and drawn thousands of disaffected youths from Western countries to the jihadi cause.

Air strikes were carried out on Thursday and a reconnaissance mission took place overnight last night. “It’s all noise and bombing and propaganda, with no results on the ground”.

Also Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s arms trade adviser said Russia has begun delivering S-300 air-defense missile systems to Iran, according to the Russian state news agency Tass.

The efforts to forge unity gained momentum as Fallon confirmed that eight more jets were on their way to Britain’s base in Cyprus to join the attacks and warned that military action against IS could continue for years, not months. “The difference will be on the ground”.

“When I said no boots on the ground, I think the American people understood generally that we’re not going to do an Iraq-style invasion of Iraq or Syria with battalions that are moving across the desert”, said Obama. The US-led coalition has recently stepped up attacks on the Isis-controlled oil industry, a source of revenue for the group, but has struggled with targets in the Isis stronghold in Raqqa, Syria, where Isis members are nearly indistinguishable from the civilian population.

He said: “Mr speaker, instead of dodgy dossiers we now have bogus battalions of moderate fighters”. Just in the south, we are over 35,000 fighters.

So, will more air strikes hinder or help ISIL?

Demonstrators opposed to the air strikes held protests in several cities.

However shadow chancellor John McDonnell – Mr Corbyn’s closest Shadow Cabinet ally – poured cold water on his speech, saying it reminded him of Tony Blair’s speech taking the country into the Iraq War.