RAF Tornado fighter bombers have successfully attacked a large group of Islamic State terrorists attacking Kurdish forces in northern Iraq, the Ministry of Defence has said.
A Tornado G4 patrol was able to “guide” a Paveway bomb on to a group of more than 30 fighters from IS – also referred as Isis, Isil or Daesh – near Sinjar.
The sortie, which took place on Monday, was carried out in support of an offensive by Kurdish peshmerga fighters mounted against IS in the Mosul region.
“The first flight used a Paveway bomb to destroy a mortar position which had opened fire on the Kurds. The following mission destroyed a heavy machine gun near Mosul with a Paveway IV, then proceeded west towards Sinjar,” the MoD said in a statment
“There was heavy cloud, which may have encouraged the terrorists to assume that they were safe from air attack, but, working very closely with the Kurdish forces, the GR4s were able to guide a Paveway on to a large group of over 30 Daesh terrorists who were massing for a counter-attack; the Kurdish unit subsequently reported that the air strike had been highly effective.
“The Tornado patrol then destroyed another Isil mortar position south-west of Sinjar.”