Australian fighter jets bomb purported Daesh positions in eastern Syria

Australian fighter jets have carried out their first airstrike against the positions of the Daesh extremist group inside Syria as part of the so-called US-led campaign against the Takfiri terrorists.

Australia’s Defense Minister Kevin Andrews said Wednesday that an Australian F/A-18 Super Hornet fired a missile during an air raid on Monday, destroying an armored vehicle in a Daesh compound in the war-torn country.

“Two days ago, the Air Task Group completed its first strike against a Daesh strike in eastern Syria, destroying an armored personnel carrier,” he said.

Andrews said that the majority of Australian missions are being carried out over Iraq “on a very regular basis.”

“This is part of our logical extension in the fight against Daesh to operate not just over northern Iraq, but also to operate over eastern Syria in order to degrade and destroy Daesh forces,” he said.

Last week, Andrews said that his country’s air assaults in the Middle East could last up to three years.

The plan for conducting airstrikes in Syria has faced opposition from Australia’s President of the Human Rights Commission, Gillian Triggs, who last week warned that bombing Syria would “almost certainly” lead to more civilian deaths, in addition to a rise in the number of asylum seekers.

Australian jets completed their first operation in Syria on Friday, but did not attack any positions.

Since September 2014, the US along with some of its allies has purportedly been conducting airstrikes against Daesh Takfiri terrorists inside Syria without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate.

The airstrikes in Syria are an extension of the US-led aerial campaign against purported ISIL positions in Iraq, which started in August 2014.

This is while many of the countries joining the so-called anti-terror coalition, such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have been staunch supporters of the extremist elements fighting against the Syrian government.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad complained back in May that the coalition does not aim to “do away” with the terror group, saying, “They want to use this terrorist structure for threatening and blackmailing other countries.”

Earlier in September, Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi strongly spoke against the US-led coalition as “nothing but a huge lie,” saying that, “Facts prove that this alliance is a failure, and that it’s selective in choosing its targets.”

The conflict in Syria, which has claimed the lives of about 250,000 people, has caused nearly half of Syria’s pre-war population of 23 million to flee, with many thousands attempting to reach Europe.

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