Wednesday [Dec 24th] saw both Tornados and Reaper aircraft providing support to the Kurdish peshmerga, as they consolidated their recent victories over ISIL. A Tornado patrol identified an ISIL armed vehicle at a large former Iraqi military compound, and attacked it with a Brimstone missile.

Meanwhile, a Reaper provided overwatch to a US air strike that destroyed a truck which had been converted into a large suicide bomb vehicle, then fired a Hellfire missile at a pick-up truck being used by ISIL to build a road-block of burning tyres.