ISIS presents a direct threat to the British people, Prime Minister David Cameron said Friday as he opened a debate in Parliament on whether Britain should join airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq.
The terror group is an organization of "staggering" brutality, he said, which has already killed one British hostage and threatens the lives of two more, reports GHN based on CNN.
"This is not a threat on the far side of the world," he said, but one which menaces European nations directly.
In addition to an ISIS-inspired attack on a Jewish museum in Brussels earlier in the year, Europe's security agencies have disrupted six other ISIS-linked plots, he said.
Parliament was recalled by Cameron for the vote on military action in Iraq, which is expected to be approved but will be preceded by lengthy debate in the House of Commons.
Cameron said Britain should join international allies in combating ISIS, an action would "take not just months, but years."
"The hallmarks will be patience and persistence, not shock and awe," he said of the campaign against the Sunni extremist group.
The government insists such action is legal because Iraq's government has requested international help to tackle ISIS, which has overrun vast swathes of Iraq and Syria and massacred religious minorities and Shia Muslims.
Cameron made that point again Friday, saying there was "no question" of the legality of action given the request by Iraq's leaders and the broad international backing for the campaign against ISIS.
Some MPs may be reluctant to back a bombing campaign in Iraq because of doubts over its effectiveness or unhappiness over past UK military intervention in Iraq.
But action has been backed by the governing coalition of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, as well as the opposition Labour Party.