...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
(ISIS/ISIS/IS/ISIS) in Syria and Iraq.
Citing Defense Secretary Penny Mordaunt, Britannia’s ITV reported that the latter visited Royal Air Force’s base in Cyprus, where RAF pilots are training with six of their F-35 jets.
"I am very proud that these are now flying in defense and in projecting the UK’s national interest," Mordaunt began. "This is a fantastic new aircraft, it is amazing, it’s doing so well out here on these operations... it’s a really historic moment."
"It obviously has some incredible capabilities which are really putting us in the lead," she continued.
The jets were deployed to Cyprus, where British Eurofighter Typhoons are also stationed, on Exercise Lightning Dawn, the first overseas deployment for the RAF F-35s which was designed to allow pilots and engineers to gain experience in maintaining and flying the aircraft in an unfamiliar environment.
In the past four weeks, the jets have flown in pairs for more than 225 hours, just over 30% of their total flying hours in the last year, and carried out 95 missions before joining Operation Shader, the name given to the UK’s contribution in the ongoing military action against IS.