British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said on Monday he saw no immediate demand from the U.S. and its Gulf allies for Britain to extend its air strikes on Islamic State (IS) fighters to Syria. Britain's parliament approved air strikes against IS in Iraq by a decisive margin last month but is far from united about the need to extend them to Syria. Hammond, speaking to Reuters on a visit to the Kurdistan region of Iraq, said he did not rule out Britain joining the United States in striking IS targets in Syria but did not expect any early requests to do so. "I don't see an imminent demand for that," he said. "My understanding is that the U.S. is satisfied that it has the firepower it needs in Syria at the moment. He added: "Of course none of us knows how this campaign is going to evolve but at the moment I think the arrangement now where we are focusing on targets in Iraq and the U.S. and Gulf partners are focusing on Syria is working well." The United States and five Arab allies began bombing IS positions in Syria last month. The United States has been carrying out strikes in Iraq since early August. The group has seized vast areas of Syria and Iraq and is accused of massacres and beheadings of civilians and soldiers. So far, air strikes have failed to halt the militants' expansion into new territory. But Hammond said there would have to be a clear military task that could not be met by existing coalition forces engaged in Syria before Britain might consider striking IS there. "At the moment my understanding is that all the targets that are being identified are being prosecuted," he added. "There are enough aircraft, there's enough strike capability but we will keep that under careful review." Six Tornado jets, normally based at RAF Marham in England, have been based on Cyprus since August and have carried out several strikes over Iraq since then. Last year, the British parliament voted against carrying out air strikes against Syria for its lack of progress in eliminating chemical weapons and the opposition Labour party has said any such action now would require a U.N. resolution on Syria. British soldiers are in Iraq training Kurdish peshmerga forces battling IS militants. Britain has supplied machine guns but the Kurds have said they need heavier weapons such as tanks and attack helicopters. Asked about heavier weapons, Hammond said: "We've got to understand the need and then we've got to work together as a coalition to decide what we think is appropriate for us to supply, how best it can be supplied and how best to deliver it." Hammond held talks with Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Masoud Barzani as well as KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani. He also visited officials in the capital Baghdad. http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/113029.aspx
