Daesh: Syria/Iraq

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

We have ruled out the use of UK combat forces in Syria, and indeed in Iraq, but we have not ruled out the provision of UK capabilities in support of combat forces provided by others. UK command and control, logistics, surveillance, and intelligence gathering and analysis could all provide a very substantial reinforcement to any troops that were deployed on the ground.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Yesterday, I met people from the Waltham Forest Council of Mosques to discuss Daesh. They share the concern to tackle the threat it poses, but do have questions about the strategy. The Secretary of State said that failure was not an option, but will he set out for my constituents a bit more about what he means by either failure or success in our operations in Syria?

[Mr Hammond]

For me, success is the destruction of Daesh. As I have said many times in this House, I do not delude myself into thinking that destroying Daesh will end the threat of Islamist extremism, but this particular iteration of it as a military force occupying territory has to be ended. The struggle to defeat the perversion of Islam that the Daesh ideology—the extreme Islamist ideology—represents will take much longer. It will be the struggle of a generation, and it is a struggle that must be led by Muslims themselves, reclaiming their religion from the extremists.