Australian fighter jets have carried out their first airstrike against the positions of the Daesh extremist group inside Syria as part of the US-led campaign.
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 inside Syria.
The airstrikes in Syria are an extension of the US-led aerial campaign against Daesh positions in Iraq, which started in August 2014.
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.
Editor's note: This article has been edited from the source material
