LONDON: RAF Hercules aircraft dropped 14 tonnes of food and water on the besieged Iraqi town of Amerli on Saturday night, the defence secretary, Michael Fallon, has said as he confirmed that Britain is keeping open the option of joining US air strikes against Isil militants.
Fallon, who pointed out that the RAF has transported arms to Kurdish forces fighting jihadists from Isil, said Britain welcomed the US air strikes and said ministers would consider any request from the Iraqi government to join in further action.
The British government has decided to rule out definitively sending combat ground troops to Iraq, a position ministers are making clear in public. But they are leaving the door open to joining air strikes against Isis forces by saying they have no plans to do so at the moment and have not received a request to do so.
Fallon explained the government thinking when he was asked on Sky News if Britain would participate in air strikes against Isil forces if it was requested to do so by the Iraqi government.
Fallon said: “That hasn’t arisen yet. We are helping in the way we can at the moment. We are helping with humanitarian aid, we are helping with surveillance, we are helping with counter-terrorism. We are supporting the Abadi government. We are helping internationally. We have not been asked to commit either combat troops on the ground and we are not going to do that and we have not been asked to join in other air strikes though we certainly welcome [them].”
The defence secretary said that Britain’s current focus was on humanitarian relief as he confirmed that two RAF Hercules aircraft were involved in dropping supplies on Amerli.
He said: “We have been putting in humanitarian aid. I can confirm that last night I authorised two Hercules to participate in the big aid drop on Amerli, a town that has been under siege for nearly two months. The RAF dropped 14 tonnes of food and water there for a population that has been completely besieged.
“We are assisting with surveillance. We are helping the Americans there. We are doing everything we can to underpin the new Abadi government, the democratic, legitimate government of Iraq. We are doing everything we can internationally to coordinate action against Isil. We are all involved in this.
“Last night, in the relief operation for Amerli, there were French, Australian, American and British aircraft involved together.”
