ITV News exclusive: Bloodied bodies and suicide vests - what the fight against Islamic State in Syria looks like

This is what the fight against Islamic State (IS) in Syria looks like. It’s a fight that Britain could join later today.

Suicide vests lie undetonated near the bodies of a dozen IS fighters, killed in an assault on a Kurdish outpost.

The location is Ain Issa, a town on the front line of the fight between the Syrian Kurds and IS.

The town is a key target for those already carrying out airstrikes.

In the last 24 hours, the US has carried out two airstrikes which struck an IS tactical unit and destroyed two IS fighting positions.

It’s on the road that leads from the border town of Kobani to Raqqa, the stronghold of IS in Syria which the British government plans to bomb if MP’s vote in favour of extending raids from Iraq to Syria tonight.

But unlike the Kurds, there will be no British “boots on the ground”, only airstrikes from jets taking off from RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus.

The base commander told ITV News in October that they were ready and prepared for the extension of the fight against IS.

That leaves the brutal task of combatting the threat of IS in the villages and towns of Northern Syria to groups like the YPG, whose fighters face the daily threat from an enemy prepared to attack with suicide belts and sophisticated weapons captured during their rampage across Syria and Iraq.

• For more on this story, watch Senior International Correspondent John Irvine's report on ITV News tonight.