62,000 Coalition Sorties Flown Against Islamic State

According to the US Defense Department coalition aircraft have now flown close to 62,000 sorties against Islamic State targets in both Iraq and Syria since operations began and launched more than 9,000 airstrikes.

In Cyprus the RAF has continued to fly missions over the Christmas period - particularly in support of Iraqi troops as they battled IS for control of the key city of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province just 55 miles from Baghdad.

Tornados and Typhoons based there have been involved in providing close air support to those soldiers - on one sortie two GR4s carried out six attacks using Paveway guided bombs, hitting a sniper position, and three IS units, including a direct hit on one group of 17 fighters.

RAF jets were again over Ramadi on Christmas Day, this time hitting an anti-aircraft gun plus what the MoD describe as a ‘massed’ group of Islamic State fighters who were preparing to counter attack. Both targets were again hit with Paveway 500 pound bombs.

The RAF’s Typhoons have also been flying around the clock over since they arrived in Cyprus in early December. In the past few days they’ve bombed targets in Northern Iraq around both Tal Afar and Kisik which both lie on this key route between Islamic State's HQ in Raqqa and Iraq’s second city of Mosul which is still in their hands.

Two days before Christmas a Typhoon patrol fired eight Paveway guided bombs at targets around the city, destroying buildings, ammunition stores and several heavy machine guns. On Sunday Typhoons supported Kurdish Peshmerga, hitting two groups of Daesh fighters - again using Paveway IV guided bombs.

Although the MoD hasn’t reported any manned missions over Syria in the past few days, RAF drones are known to have been operating around Raqqa - on Boxing Day a Reaper hit an IS checkpoint south of the city with a Hellfire missile.

Reapers have carried out airstrikes over Iraq too - on the same day a drone helped carry out a coalition airstrike on what the MoD say was the entrance to a tunnel being used by Islamic State fighters.