UK to spend more on drones and SAS to tackle Islamic State

An Islamic State flag in northern Iraq

(Image credit: Getty)

published 13 July 2015

David Cameron has instructed defence chiefs to spend their newly increased budget on fighting Islamic State militants.

Extra funding is expected to go towards Britain's Special Forces, as well as paying for more spy planes and drones.

Chancellor George Osborne last week announced that the UK would spend two per cent of its national income on defence, in line with the Nato requirement, every year of this decade. The Ministry of Defence's budget will be increased by 0.5 per cent above inflation every year to 2020/21 and an additional £1.5bn a year will be available by 2020/21 for the military and intelligence agencies."Money will be poured into Special Forces units like the SAS as well as the drones which have launched hundreds of attacks on Isil targets in Iraq," says the Daily Telegraph.The Prime Minister and Defence Secretary Michael Fallon have suggested that they want to carry out airstrikes against IS in Syria, with a Commons vote expected on the issue in the autumn.Ministers are said to be cautious about asking parliament to approve military action before a new Labour leader is elected for fear of a similar defeat to that of 2013, when Labour and dozens of Tory rebels vetoed military action against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.In a rare step, Cameron has invited Labour's interim leader Harriet Harman to a meeting of the National Security Council on Tuesday to consider the threat posed by IS. The report comes as tens of thousands of Kosovans have been left without water amid fears that IS militants had poisoned a reservoir supplying around half of the capital city of Pristina.