British Parliament Geared up for Vote on Joining Iraq Air Strikes

Britain is prepared to “make the case” to extend air strikes against the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant terrorist group beyond Iraq into Syria if it believes the circumstances are right

strikes Hammond said the government believes there is a robust legal basis for extending the strikes into Syria as wary British MPs return to Westminster to vote on whether to back military action in Iraq.

Prime Minister David Cameron will kick off the debate at the House of Commons from 0930 GMT and has argued that Britain should not be "frozen with fear" over fresh military action in Iraq.

Six British Tornado fighter jets based in Cyprus are poised to begin raids on IS within days or even hours, beginning a military campaign that Defense Secretary Michael Fallon has said could last three years.

If the vote is passed, Britain would join the US and France in launching strikes on the ISIL terrorist group in Iraq, where it controls swathes of territory, as in neighboring Syria.

Hammond said that Britain was prepared to fight the IS group until "they no longer pose a real threat". "We judge that ISIL (another name for IS) does pose a serious threat to our security and we will continue to deal with ISIL... until such time as we judge that it does not pose such a threat," he told BBC radio.

Some lawmakers are expected to oppose military action because of fears that the mission is ill-defined, fuelled by memories of Britain's role in the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. Between 2003 and 2009, 179 British personnel died in Iraq and the last British troops only left the country in 2011.

"I believe there's a big danger of mission creep with this and no-one can tell us what the endgame is," Labour lawmaker Diane Abbott told Sky News. "We spent £8.4 billion (10.7 billion euros, $13.7 billion) on the last Iraq war and Iraq is even more divided, more murderous, more riddled with terrorists than ever."