Libya

Debate between Brendan O'Hara and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 19th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Before the formation of the Government of national accord, there was discussion among the international community about how we would deal with Daesh if there was no solution on the ground in Libya. We concluded that it would be pretty much impossible for us to do so. I am very pleased that we now have a Government formed in Libya that we can support to do that job.

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

The UK’s past intervention in Libya has been an unmitigated disaster. The mess we have left behind has caused enormous reputational damage to the United Kingdom and that cannot happen again. Given that we are offering training and technical support to armed forces away from the front line, will the Secretary of State tell me what armed forces we will be training and supporting, given that Libya has myriad competing militias and groups?

[Mr Hammond]

Another assertion. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that it was not the view of the people I met yesterday that the intervention in 2011 was an unmitigated disaster. It has rid the country of Gaddafi and averted a genocide. He talks in the present tense about training support, and I say yet again that we are delivering no training support in Libya at present. If any request from the Libyan Government for training support were made, it would be for militia groups that had signed up to the Government of national accord’s security plan and were being incorporated into the Libyan security forces that will be formed from them.

Daesh: Syria/Iraq

Debate between Brendan O'Hara and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Maybe I missed something in my hon. Friend’s question. The simple answer is that it is because they are in Syria and until 14 days ago we were not authorised to strike at targets in Syria. A crucial part of our argument was that we needed to take the fight to Daesh in Syria—its command and control headquarters, its supply lines and its sources of economic support.

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

In the debate just two weeks ago we were told that Daesh in Raqqa represented the head of the snake, and that Daesh posed a real and imminent threat to the security of the United Kingdom. Given that, can the Foreign Secretary tell us what action has been taken by the RAF to diminish Daesh in Raqqa? If no action has been taken by the RAF in Raqqa, why not?

[Mr Hammond]

As I made clear earlier, I cannot talk about individual targets and individual attacks. The hon. Gentleman is right. That focus in the debate was on the command and control headquarters in Raqqa and that has to be the target if we are to destroy Daesh, but we have to go about that deliberately. Rushing to strike Daesh in its headquarters is not necessarily the best way to go about the task. I am not a military strategist and I do not think it would be sensible for politicians, least of all in open session, to try to set the military plan. What I do know is that targeting the leadership of Daesh in a heavily populated city such as Raqqa will require extremely careful planning, the acquisition of a great deal of intelligence and surveillance data, and the proper analysis of those data.