Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Fallon and Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh

Monday 13th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Michael Fallon]

Yes, we need to keep up the pressure on both. With coalition help, Syrian Democratic Forces are making good progress in operations to isolate Raqqa. Senior coalition officers, including some from the UK, are now working on how the coalition might best support the liberation of Raqqa. They are visiting coalition sites in northern Syria as needed to co-ordinate coalition support and to engage partner forces.

[Ms Ahmed-Sheikh]

There have been recent reports from Iraq of mass graves being uncovered in territory formerly held by Daesh, including the discovery of 4,000 bodies at al-Khasfa, near Mosul. What support is the Ministry of Defence offering the Iraqi Government to ensure that the foul perpetrators are brought to justice swiftly?

[Sir Michael Fallon]

Yes, in the counter-Daesh coalition we are working to see how we can accumulate the evidence so that those from Daesh who may have committed the most heinous of crimes can properly be brought to justice, either in Iraq or, indeed, elsewhere.

Counter-Daesh Quarterly Update

Debate between Michael Fallon and Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

Yes, we are planning to provide the Kurdish regional government with more than £1 million worth of further ammunition to equip the peshmerga. We have already supplied ammunition and arms to start with and we have done a lot of training. We have trained some 3,000 of the peshmerga to fight, but we have a further shipment in hand and, subject to the approval of Parliament—there is a special procedure by which Parliament must signify its approval—I hope that that ammunition will be with the Kurdish peshmerga in the next few weeks.

[Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)]

What assessment has the Secretary of State made in relation to the number of Daesh terrorists operating in Europe, as opposed to Syria? How effective has our work been in preventing conscription to Daesh, both here and abroad?

[Michael Fallon]

That is a very good question, if I may say so. As Daesh is squeezed in Iraq and Syria, we may well see some backlash from Daesh in its external attack planning against west European or British targets, so we are vigilant, working with our partners across Europe to make sure that we understand how that attack planning is being carried out and so that we can track down those who are likely to be responsible for future attacks.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Fallon and Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh

Monday 29th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

The hon. Lady is right to say that Daesh has been seeding with improvised explosive devices those towns and villages from which it has been expelled. The British contribution to the training effort of the Iraqi forces has focused on counter-IED training, which we are now supplying at all four of the building partner capacity centres. If there is more we can do to assist the Iraqi and Kurdish forces in that training, we will certainly do so.

[Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)]

What support will the UK Government give to the United Nations, which is today giving fresh aid to Syria, and to the albeit very fragile ceasefire?

[Michael Fallon]

We have been making our contribution through the United Nations and we are ready to help do more. It is not easy for convoys to get through to some of the very hard-to-reach areas. Last week’s aid drop was not entirely successful; it was dropped from a great height into a high wind, and a number of the pallets did not reach their target. The best way of getting aid in is by land convoys, but that is not easy in some of the particularly hard-to-reach areas.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Fallon and Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh

Monday 23rd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

There are moderate forces fighting Daesh in Syria that have also been engaged in the civil war. The key is to bring the civil war to an end as quickly as possible so that we can focus on dealing with Daesh. Troops are already involved in the conflict. We have been helping to train them and supplying non-lethal equipment to them, and we will continue to work with them to ensure that Syria is rid of both Assad and Daesh.

[Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)]

The Secretary of State will be aware of a report published today in The Independent stating that in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Paris, Islamophobic hate crime in the UK increased by 300%, the vast and overwhelming majority of victims being young Muslim women. When will the Secretary of State join the cross-party consensus in the Chamber and follow the example of President Hollande, who refused last week to give the terrorists the legitimacy they craved and instead rightly described them as “Daesh”? Does he not accept that the language we use is important and that language connecting Muslims and terrorism is dangerous and misleading?

[Michael Fallon]

I agree with almost all of that, although I am afraid I have not had time to read the report in The Independent. I myself prefer the term “Daesh” because it is more accurate and does not embrace the word “Islam”, but “ISIL” and “ISIS” have become accepted terms in the British media, and it might be too late to make that change.

Counter-ISIL Coalition Strategy

Debate between Michael Fallon and Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

The peshmerga have fought extremely bravely and have had some success in pushing ISIL out of Kurdish areas. I have welcomed the training and equipment that we have been able to supply to them. However, it is also important to assist the Government of Iraq by supplying training and equipment to the Iraqi army outside the Kurdish areas. That is where our new effort, which involves stepping up our counter-IED training, will largely be concentrated.

[Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)]

The “Ministerial Code” states:

“Ministers should be as open as possible with Parliament and the public”.

Not once, in a seven and a half hour debate last year on military action on Daesh targets, did the Government mention the potential role of UK forces embedded in US or Canadian forces in bombing targets in Syria. Does the Secretary of State consider that to be an open and transparent approach to this most serious of issues?

[Michael Fallon]

I have explained the practice in respect of publicising the role of embedded personnel. These are not our operations but the operations of other countries, and it is for them to decide whether they want to publicise them. Our policy has been, when we are asked for details of this embedding, to be open and transparent. We answer parliamentary questions or freedom of information requests from anybody in this House or outside it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Fallon and Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh

Monday 13th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

We are committed to a full and comprehensive strategic defence and security review. It is already under way, and at Question Time last month I invited any Member to contribute to it, and we will invite other stakeholders with interests in defence matters to make a similar contribution.

[Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that this Chamber has a great opportunity to set an example by using the terminology “Daesh” on each and every occasion that it is mentioned here?

[Michael Fallon]

I note what the hon. Lady says. As I said, I use the term “Daesh” when I am in the middle east, talking to our partners in the coalition or the media there. Until now, ISIL has been the term that is better understood here in the UK, but it is certainly worth reflecting on whether we should now seek to move on to using Daesh, which does not confer the sort of legitimacy that the title ISIL—involving the word “state”—does.

Britain and International Security

Debate between Michael Fallon and Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

I shall certainly look at the right hon. Gentleman’s specific point about the border. We now have a very strong defence relationship with the Government in the south. I recently signed a defence co-operation agreement with my counterpart. There needs to be a north-south partnership as well as an east-west partnership, if I may put it like that.

[Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)]

One of the most striking images of the terrorist attacks in Tunisia last week was of Muslim hotel workers who lined up to prevent Daesh terrorists from slaughtering more guests in a neighbouring hotel. Would it not be more appropriate, for the purposes of this debate and beyond, that we refer to the perpetrators of these attacks as Daesh rather than granting them the legitimacy and association with Islam that the term “ISIL” or “Islamic State” provides?

[Michael Fallon]

I have a lot of sympathy with that view. Of course, our interlocutors in the Gulf and our coalition allies refer to it as Daesh, and as the Prime Minister reported on Monday, we have now got the BBC to move away from calling it any kind of state. I have referred to it in shorthand as ISIL, and it may be too late to replace “ISIL” with “Daesh”, but the hon. Lady is right to say that we need to reflect on it and not to confer any further legitimacy on ISIL.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Fallon and Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh

Monday 8th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

We have begun the training of moderate Syrian forces in bases outside Syria and a number of people are contributing to that training. Progress will depend on identifying suitable moderate forces that are prepared to take the fight to ISIL, particularly in the north of Syria, and ensuring that once they are trained they are ready to rejoin that fight. We are making that contribution to the training effort being led by the Americans and proposed for four different sites, all outside Syria.

[Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)]

What steps is the Department taking to work with other Departments, particularly the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development, to ensure that measures being taken to counter extremism include aid to support education, not just military action?

[Michael Fallon]

The hon. Lady is quite right. The effort has to be spread across diplomatic activity, political activity and communications activity. We have to make efforts to deradicalise extremists in our societies, so we have to take measures across the board. ISIL cannot simply be defeated militarily, and I can assure her that this is an effort that is spread across the Whitehall Departments to which she referred.