Royal Air Force Typhoon FGR4s have conducted a mission with French warplanes in a combined operation against an underground arms cache in Syrian territory employed by the Islamic State group (IS), according to the UK's MoD.
The facility, pinpointed through surveillance, was believed to be storing arms and explosives, the announcement noted, and was situated in mountainous terrain just above the historic site of Palmyra in Syria's central region.
"The RAF jets employed precision-guided Paveway IV munitions to strike a number of entry passages leading to the facility... early reports are that the objective was successfully hit," the MoD said.
There was no evidence of any civilian casualties in the attack late on Saturday and all the aircraft made a safe return, the defence officials confirmed.
The Typhoon FGR4s were assisted by a Voyager refuelling tanker.
The Islamic State group - alternatively referred to as Daesh - enforced extremist governance over large swathes of both Syria and Iraq prior to its 2019 collapse.
"This operation underscores our UK leadership, and resolve to operate in unison with our partners, to stamp out any revival of Daesh and their harmful and extremist ideologies in the Middle East," Britain's Defence Chief the minister said.
UK warplanes have conducted overwatch operations over Syria to "prevent any attempted comeback" of IS after its routing at the battle of Baghuz in the year 2019, the ministry said.
"I extend gratitude to all the members of the UK armed forces involved in this mission for their professionalism and their courage," he said. "Including them were thousands of UK service members deployed over Christmas and New Year. This action, to eliminate dangerous terrorists who endanger our security, shows how our armed forces are prepared to act, throughout the year, protecting the UK domestically and powerful internationally."
In December, the United States armed forces executed what it described as a "large-scale strike" against IS targets in Syria, following an assault killed two US servicemembers and a civilian linguist in Palmyra.
The UN reports Islamic State still has roughly 5-7 thousand fighters in Iraq and Syria.
