- ‘Defence Secretary says mission has escalated beyond a humanitarian one.
- Prime Minister warns the situation may require military action.
- British military planes flying deeper into Iraq to capture surveillance footage.
- Footage of jihadists used to help Kurdish and Iraqi forces on the ground.
- Soldiers from Yorkshire Regiment in the Kurdish region last week.
- At least 1,000 Royal Marines to be deployed to Jordan in exercise with US.
- Kurdish and US forces set to take back strategically important Mosul Dam.
- New deployment of 150 special forces troops likely to begin later this week.
Britain was dragged deeper into the Iraq crisis last night as it emerged another 150 special forces troops are being deployed.
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said the mission had escalated beyond a humanitarian one and could last for months.
British forces are now helping Iraq to ‘combat’ the rise of Islamic State and its extreme form of terrorism, he said. And in his most uncompromising intervention to date, Prime Minister David Cameron warned that the situation may now require ‘military action to go after the terrorists’.’