RAF Tornado GR4 aircraft on Tuesday launched attacks on Islamic State (Isis) targets in Iraq for the first time in strikes which the Ministry of Defence described as successful.

It was the first time, after five missions, that the Tornados, based in Cyprus, have dropped bombs.

“In the course of an armed reconnaissance mission from RAF Akrotiri, two Tornados were tasked to assist Kurdish troops in north-west Iraq who were under attack from Isil (Isis) terrorists”, the MoD said in a statement.

It said the RAF patrol identified an Isis heavy weapon position that was attacking Kurdish ground forces.

A Paveway IV guided bomb was used to attack the Isis position. The Tornado patrol subsequently identified an Isis armed pick-up truck in the same area and conducted an attack on the vehicle using a Brimstone missile.

Britain’s first bombing of Iraq since the 2003 invasion of Iraq comes on the eve of Cameron’s speech to the Conservative party conference in Birmingham.

The Tornados are equipped with Paveway bombs, the smaller Brimstone anti-armour missiles, and a Litening III targeting pod, an Israeli-designed sensor that displays an infrared image of the target to the aircrew.

The RAF Tornados – two-seat, all-weather day/night attack aircraft – have been flying reconnaissance missions over Iraq for the past six weeks and began flying armed patrols after the Commons voted for military action in Iraq against Isis on Friday.

Michael Fallon, the UK defence secretary, has said that the bombing patrols could continue for years. Faced with widespread scepticism of the usefulness of air strikes, David Cameron has said they are one of a number of means to destroy Isis, the most important of which were more effective and better trained Iraqi troops and better armed Kurdish Peshmerga fighters.