The Kurdish peshmerga have liberated significant swathes of territory in northern Iraq from ISIL control, including key towns such as Rabiyah and Zumar, and rescued the Yazidi refugees who were besieged on Mount Sinjar.

A recent offensive, which RAF and other coalition aircraft supported, succeeded in driving back the terrorists to the west of Kirkuk. In this area are a number of villages from which ISIL have driven out the civilian population and the deserted villages have then been transformed into large fortified strongholds and terrorist training camps. Several of these have already been targeted by coalition aircraft and overrun by the peshmerga.

A large coordinated operation on Friday 12 June focused on a location behind the current front line, west of Kirkuk and north of Bayji. Extensive reconnaissance allowed a large number of terrorist targets to be identified inside the perimeter of the complex. Careful planning allowed a number of coalition aircraft, including RAF Tornado GR4s which dropped ten Paveway IV precision guided bombs, to conduct a coordinated air strike on these key targets and disrupt ISIL efforts to recover from the successful peshmerga offensives to the north, and Iraqi army operations around Bayji and Tikrit to the south.