| Washington Post | - |
“Tornado aircraft will be able to play a specialist surveillance role to give us a more complete picture of the situation in the crisis area.
A “small number of aircraft” fitted with high-tech Litening III reconnaissance pods flew out of Norfolk in eastern England Tuesday afternoon, British officials said. They will be deployed to Cyprus, an island nation in the eastern Mediterranean Sea where they will be “available to fly over the crisis area at short notice to provide vital intelligence to assist the delivery” of British humanitarian aid, British defense officials said.
A Tornado GR4 fighter jet, operated by the Royal Air Force, over northwest England while preparing for a deployment to Afghanistan in 2012. (Photo by Cpl. Mike Jones/U.K. Ministry of Defense)
Officials did not say whether Britain might consider joining the United States in conducting airstrikes on militant targets. Fighters with the radical Islamic State have seized territory across northern and western Iraq, causing civilians to flee their homes. In northern Iraq, tens of thousands of Yazidis, a religious minority, have taken refuge on a mountain near Sinjar, where they are without food or water.
The announcement is the latest indication that the U.S.-led effort to help provide assistance to Iraqis in the northern part of the country is expanding and taking on a more international flavor. It began with U.S. air drops Thursday in Sinjar. U.S. aviators began carrying out airstrikes the following day to prevent militants from getting too close to the city of Irbil, where the United States maintains a consulate and has military advisers.
On Thursday, British officials said they had also agreed to transport military supplies to Kurdish forces battling members of the Islamic State. The supplies, a spokesman for British Prime Minister David Cameron said, were from “other contributing states.”
U.S. military officials said Monday that that U.S. aircraft have now made five air drops of food and water on Mount Sinjar. They have been conducted from multiple unidentified air bases in the Middle East. The latest air drop was performed by air crews in one C-17, which dropped 40 pallets of water, and three C-130 aircraft, which dropped 36 bundles with a combined 11,088 prepackaged meals and 1,331 gallons of water, U.S. officials said.
As of Monday, U.S. aircraft have delivered more than 85,000 meals and more than 20,000 gallons of drinking water.
UPDATE: This post has been updated to accurately characterize the Cyprus government.
Dan Lamothe covers national security for The Washington Post and anchors its military blog, Checkpoint.
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