The airstrikes came just hours after the Commons voted decisively by 397 to 223 in favour of military action after an impassioned and sometimes heated debate lasting nearly 11 hours.
The debate closed with an oratorical tour de force by the shadow foreign secretary, Hilary Benn, which drew cheers. A total of 66 Labour MPs rejected the advice of their leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and voted with the government. Seven Tories ignored the party’s three-line whip and voted to oppose airstrikes.
Cameron said there would be strong support from Britain’s allies. “I’ve just been on the telephone to Chancellor Merkel of Germany, and the Germans are stepping up what they are doing in the region,” he said.
“And there will be very strong support from Muslim countries, Gulf countries, that have asked us to take part in this action, as part of a process that will actually help to deliver the political and diplomatic change that we need in Syria as well.”
Fallon said the air campaign, due to be supported by reconstituted Syrian troops, could last three years. “The American estimate of the campaign in Iraq, which began last year, was that it would last at least three years and we’re not halfway through that yet. The operations there by the coalition have lasted just over a year and the prime minister has been pretty clear that this is going to be a long campaign to ensure that Daesh are thrown out of Iraq and that they are degraded and defeated in eastern Syria. This is not going to be quick.”
He said most of the initial airstrikes would focus on Isis depots, supply routes, logistics, command and control and oil wells from which Isis derives revenues.
He said the French, in joining the air campaign a month ago, had been surprised by the number of infrastructure targets. Fallon held out hope that a diplomatic and political path would open up this month with a planned agreement among the Syrian opposition groups in talks in Saudi Arabia. Opposition representatives in turn would attend UN-sponsored peace talks, probably in New York, involving all the key regional partners, including Iran.
Fallon said: “We want a new Syrian state including some of those who are fighting it helping on the ground. Obviously we hope in Syria that we will be able to get the Free Syrian Army, who at the moment largely have been fighting [the forces of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad], involved.
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