Royal Air Force Typhoon fighter aircraft have conducted a mission with France's air force in a coordinated attack on an hidden munitions depot in Syria used by the Islamic State group (IS), per a report from the UK Ministry of Defence.
The facility, pinpointed through intelligence, was assessed as housing weapons and explosive materials, the statement said, and was positioned in mountainous terrain just north of the historic site of Palmyra in the heart of Syria.
"The RAF jets used Paveway IV guided bombs to hit a number of access tunnels leading to the site... preliminary assessments are that the objective was successfully hit," the ministry announced.
There was no evidence of any harm to civilians in the attack on Saturday evening and all the aircraft made a safe return, the defence officials confirmed.
The British jets were backed up by a Voyager tanker plane.
The Islamic State group - referred to as ISIS - established jihadist rule over large swathes of Iraq and Syria until 2019.
"This action underscores British leadership, and determination to work closely with our partners, to stamp out any resurgence of Daesh and their harmful and extremist ideologies in the area," UK Defence Secretary the Defence Secretary said.
RAF aircraft have performed surveillance missions over Syrian airspace to "prevent any attempted comeback" of the group subsequent to its routing at the battle of Baghuz in 2019, the MoD reported.
"I want to thank every member of the UK armed forces involved in this strike for their expertise and their bravery," Healey said. "They were part of thousands of British personnel stationed over Christmas and New Year. This action, to eliminate terrorist threats who endanger our safety, shows how our armed forces are prepared to act, continuously, protecting the UK at home and powerful internationally."
During December, the US military carried out what it described as a "massive strike" on Islamic State objectives in the country, after an assault resulted in the deaths of two US servicemembers and a civilian linguist in the Palmyra area.
The UN reports Daesh still maintains roughly 5-7 thousand militants in Syria and Iraq.
