British fighter jets on Tuesday bombed an artillery post and an armed truck used by the Islamic State group in Iraq in the Royal Air Force's first strikes in the US-led air campaign.

The defence ministry said two Tornado jets hit the post with a Brimstone missile used against tanks and the vehicle with a 500-pound (230 kilogramme) Paveway IV laser-guided bomb.

"Both assessed successful," read one of the tweets.

Another said: "Tornado jets have carried out first air strikes in support of democratic Iraqi government."

It did not say when or where the strikes were carried out but explained they had aided Kurdish troops in the area.

"I can confirm that the RAF were in action today in support of the Iraqi government in northwest Iraq," Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said.

Fallon said the strikes were carried out by two jets from an RAF base in Cyprus.

"They identified and attacked a heavy weapon position that was endangering Kurdish forces and they subsequently attacked an ISIL armed pickup truck in the same area," he said, using an alternative name for the Islamic State group.

The British parliament last week approved a motion to join in a US-led military campaign against IS jihadists who have seized huge swathes of Iraq and Syria in recent months.

The strikes signal the start of Britain's latest military engagement in Iraq after it pulled out all its troops in 2011 following an eight-year conflict.

The government has said it will not send combat troops on the ground or join air strikes in Syria without further parliamentary approval.

British foreign minister Philip Hammond earlier on Tuesday said UK forces would not be "panicked" into dropping bombs in Iraq.

"When we do release our weapons we have to be absolutely sure that they are against ISIL targets, that they are not going to kill innocent Sunni Muslim civilians in areas that are occupied by ISIL," he told the BBC.

"Otherwise we are having the opposite of the effect we are intending to have," he said.

Asked about France joining the US-led coalition before Britain did, he said: "There is nobody who knows anything about air power who is suggesting that the French air force is a more formidable force than the RAF."

France has already carried out two rounds of air strikes.

Roundup of anti-jihadist strikes in Iraq and Syria
Damascus (AFP) Sept 30, 2014 - Here is a roundup of developments Tuesday in the international military campaign against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

Britain joined attacks against the IS in Iraq, while jihadists edged closer to the Syrian border town of Ain al-Arab, know in Kurdish as Kobane.

The United States, which leads the coalition, initially launched strikes in Iraq on August 8 and widened its campaign on September 23 to include Syria, where IS has its headquarters.

So far, the coalition has attracted dozens of countries, though only a handful of Arab allies -- Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- are participating in the strikes on Syrian soil.

Five European countries have committed aircraft to Iraq only -- Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France and the Netherlands -- but Britain and France are the only one so far to have carried out strikes.

LATEST COALITION STRIKES AND BATTLES:

- Britain's Royal Air Force carried out its first air strikes against the IS in Iraq, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said. Tornado jets destroyed an IS heavy weapons post and a machinegun-mounted vehicle.

- In Syria, IS fighters are now "two to three kilometres" from Ain al-Arab on the Turkish border, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

- Kurdish troops backed by coalition warplanes battled the IS on three fronts in northern Iraq, one towards the Syrian border and the others near Mosul and Kirkuk.

- Kurdish peshmerga fighters entered Rabia and were fighting IS militants in the centre of the town. They had previously captured the villages of As-Saudiyah and Mahmudiyah.

- The United States said it carried out 22 air strikes on Monday and Tuesday against IS positions in Iraq and Syria.

In Syria, three strikes hit targets east of Ain al-Arab, according the US Central Command (Centcom).

Coalition partners participated in the operations but the strikes were made by US forces. Several other strikes were made in northeastern Syria, near Mount Sinjar, near Deir Ezzor in the east and northeast of Aleppo.

In Iraq, the US carried out 11 strikes on Monday and Tuesday in the northeast of the country, near the Mosul dam, northwest of Baghdad and west of Fallujah in central Iraq.

TOLL:

- One week of strikes in Syria have killed at least 211 jihadists and 22 civilians, according to the Observatory.

OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:

- At least eight people, including four children, were killed in Aleppo when Syrian army helicopters dropped barrel bombs on a rebel-held area, according to the Observatory.

- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said that extremists cannot be defeated by countries that have "spread terrorism," comments apparently aimed at the United States and other coalition members.

- The IS released more than 70 Kurdish students seized on May 29 in northern Syria, according to the Observatory. The students were part of a group of 153 who were kidnapped as they returned to Aleppo after taking exams.

- In Turkey, the government is to seek a mandate to join the coalition.