Up to 60 SAS fighters are heading to Iraq to hunt down Islamic State leaders after militants started learning how to avoid airstrikes, it has been reported.
The full squadron of troopers had initially been dispatched to Afghanistan for a separate operation, but have been diverted to battle Isis fanatics.
There have been reports this morning that one of their primary targets will be Jihadi John, the Briton believed to have killed British and American hostages in a series of gruesome executions.
The Sun quotes a senior Whitehall source as saying: 'We made some good early progress against IS but they know how to avoid the jets now. The only way to defeat them is to get up close to them on the ground.
Initially, the squadron, from Hereford, had been due to travel to Afghanistan to hunt Taliban leaders before they were ordered to turn their attentions to Isis, the newspaper reports.
While hunting for top Islamic State leaders on the ground, they will also help to pinpoint targets for air strikes.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman has said it does not comment on special forces operations.
It comes a month after the Mail on Sunday revealed how SAS troops with sniper rifles and heavy machine guns had killed hundreds of Islamic State extremists in a series of deadly quad-bike ambushes inside Iraq.
At the time, defence sources indicated that soldiers from the elite fighting unit had eliminated ‘up to eight terrorists per day’ in the daring raids, carried out during the past four weeks.
(dailymail.co.uk)
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