Tuesday 31 May – Reapers, Typhoons and Tornados all provided close air support to the Fallujah offensive, as well as destroying other Daesh targets in northern and western Iraq…

With Iraqi ground forces continuing operations to liberate Fallujah, Royal Air Force Tornado GR4s, Typhoon FGR4s, and Reapers joined other coalition aircraft in providing intensive close air support.

On Tuesday 31 May, Tornados used Paveway IV guided bombs to destroy two heavy machine-guns that were threatening the advancing Iraqi forces; one, mounted on a truck concealed in a palm grove north of Fallujah, the second in a building on the southern outskirts of the city. In northern Iraq, a Typhoon and a Reaper provided assistance to the Kurdish peshmerga and Iraqi forces. The Typhoons destroyed the headquarters of a local Daesh commander to the south-east of Mosul, using Paveway IVs, while the Reaper assisted a coalition aircraft in targeting an engineering vehicle used for constructing defences near Qayyarah, then used its own Hellfire missiles against two terrorist mortar teams. Both the Typhoons and the Reaper then flew south to add their weight to air operations over Fallujah. The Typhoons successfully attacked a third heavy machine-gun position. The Reaper kept close watch on a group of terrorists test-firing and loading weapons, including a heavy machine gun, onto a supply truck. The reaper then destroyed the truck with a direct hit from a Hellfire missile.

Further west, along the Euphrates, near the recently liberated town of Hit, a second Reaper provided support to Iraqi forces consolidating the security of the surrounding area. The Reaper destroyed both a machine-gun team and a vehicle carrying a recoilless anti-tank gun with its Hellfires.