Cameron signals support for airstrikes on IS in Syria

Prime Minister David Cameron said Britain needs to take a greater role in destroying the Islamic State group in Syria his most direct signal to date that he will seek to expand his country’s role in supporting the United States and its allies.

In remarks made to NBC News ’ “Meet the Press,” Mr. Cameron said Britain must do more fight the group, also known as ISIL. The remarks posted online on Saturday follow a commitment to meet NATO targets on military spending and make plain that Britain now sees the Islamic State group as an explicit threat to national security.

“We know that we have to defeat ISIL, we have to destroy this caliphate, whether it is in Iraq or in Syria,” he said.

The remarks come only days after Britain’s Ministry of Defence acknowledged that British forces have already conducted airstrikes over Syria albeit only when embedded with coalition forces. Britain has been carrying out surveillance and air-to-air refueling over Syria and launching attacks on neighbouring Iraq, and Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has argued that the mission should be expanded to Syria.

Mr. Cameron is seeking support from the opposition Labour Party, in an effort to build a unified national position and avoid another embarrassing defeat on Syria. Labour opposed an effort to join U.S. attacks on Syria in 2013, though that vote centred on strikes to disrupt the use of chemical weapons by Bashar al-Assad’s government.

The British leader also spoke of the need to persuade young Britons to reject Islamic extremism.

“We’ve got to defeat the narrative of extremism, even when it’s not connected to the violence,” Mr. Cameron told NBC . “Because it’s the narrative that is the jumping-off point for these young people to then go and join this dreadful death cult in Iraq and Syria.”