Britain conducts first drone strike against IS in Iraq

LONDON. KAZINFORM - Britain has carried out its first air strike by a drone in Iraq as British forces continued its air operations to help the Iraqi government in its fight against the Islamic State (IS), the British Ministry of Defense (MoD) said Monday.

The drone, described by the MoD as "a Royal Air Force (RAF) Reaper remotely piloted air system (RPAS)," adopted procedures identical to those of manned aircraft and successfully attacked the IS militants using a Hellfire missile over the weekend, the MoD said in a statement. The British Reaper continued to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assistance to coalition aircraft which enabled them to conduct further strike. A series of coalition missions were conducted near Baiji in north of Baghdad, the statement added. On Sunday morning, two RAF Tornado GR4s were also tasked to investigate suspected IS activity near Al Anbar, west of Baghdad. The MoD said a single Brimstone missile was used to "successfully destroy" a shipping container used by the IS to store equipment to support extortion and control of the local population. Britain is a member of a U.S.-led coalition carrying out air strikes against the extremist IS militants in Iraq and Syria. Britain carried out its first bombing strikes on IS targets in Iraq in late September, after British lawmakers gave green light to the military action against the IS. The authorization ruled out deploying British troops in ground combat operations, Xinhua reported.