Guardian: British warplanes are poised to join international airstrikes on the Islamic State (Isis) group in Iraq after David Cameron told the United Nations general assembly the UK was ready to play its part in confronting “an evil against which the whole world must unite”.
In what amounted to a rallying cry to MPs to back military action when Parliament is recalled on Friday, the prime minister warned that Britain must not be so “frozen with fear” of repeating the mistakes of the Iraq war that it failed to take on the “psychopathic, murderous, brutal” jihadis.
Amid speculation that RAF planes could join US and French allies in bombarding IS targets as early as this weekend, Cameron declined to discuss when the operation might begin or how long it would last, but acknowledged that it could take “quite a long time”.
He said he was “confident” of receiving support from the three major parties in the parliamentary vote, avoiding the embarrassment of a repeat of last year’s defeat over plans to bomb Syria.
Speaking to reporters in New York before the UN address, Cameron made clear that he envisaged British warplanes joining coalition airstrikes within Iraq, after receiving a request for military help from the country’s new prime minister Haider Abadi, but stressed there would be no “boots on the ground”.
Isis posed a “clear and present danger to the United Kingdom” and the Baghdad government’s invitation gave “a clear legal base” for British military action, he said.
But he did not rule out later extending operations to Isis strongholds in Syria – targeted by the US and its allies for the first time on Tuesday – though this would happen only after a separate debate and vote in Parliament.
In his speech to the general assembly, Cameron acknowledged the wariness felt by many over military action in Iraq, following the decade of violence which followed the US-led invasion of 2003.
Categories: Anti Islam act by Muslims, Arab World, UK