RAF warplanes have helped to destroy as many as 100 cave complexes housing terrorists and weapons in their biggest attack against Islamic State in more than two years.
In an operation lasting ten days, three Typhoon jets backed Iraqi ground forces and fired Storm Shadow cruise missiles at the network of fortified caves in the Makhmur mountains of northern Iraq.
The air operation, which was carried out with other coalition aircraft in March, followed months of painstaking analysis of how the terrorist group was using the caves as a haven. Analysts are assessing the impact of the strikes on the stronghold but it is likely that dozens of fighters were killed in the offensive.
New figures also showed that Britain alone killed 67 terrorists and injured four in Iraq and Syria in 2019 and last year. The military expects the death toll to be far higher this year after the attack on the caves.
Air Commodore Simon Strasdin, who oversees the air operation against Islamic State, said the attack would have a “psychological effect” on the extremists. In a briefing he said: “Our ability to make Daesh turn and run will undoubtedly have a psychological effect on their ability to fight in the future.”
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He said the remote mountain region, southwest of Arbil, was like a “moonscape” with deep ravines, and the caves had been hollowed out with generators installed inside. He said the coalition went after the targets “every single night, and we went on for ten days”.
The RAF also used Paveway IV precision-guided bombs during the operation. It marked the first operational use of the Storm Shadow cruise missile from a Typhoon FGR4 aircraft.
Strasdin said that there were an estimated 10,000 fighters still in the region but the group was now an insurgency rather than a standing army.
Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, said: “This operation will prevent the terrorist group and its toxic ideology from regaining a foothold in Iraq and reduce its capability to co-ordinate attacks around the world.”
