RAF Plane To Evacuate Casualties From Tunisia

All Britons injured in the Sousse terror attack will be returned to the UK within 24 hours, Downing Street has pledged.

The vow came after the Prime Minister said an RAF plane was being sent to evacuate casualties from Tunisia, and Home Secretary Theresa May visited the country to see the aftermath of the "absolutely horrific attack".

David Cameron has promised a "full spectrum" response to the attack that is expected to have left as many as 30 Britons dead.

He said Ms May and Foreign Office Minister Tobias Ellwood had gone to Sousse on Monday to "give condolences to those who have lost loved ones" and "see for themselves what has happened".

He said they would also take part in talks with Tunisian ministers as the number of Britons killed in the attack is expected to reach 30.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Cameron said an RAF C-17 plane was being deployed to evacuate casualties and may also repatriate bodies.

He said: "We are very happy to look at that. There are all sorts of other arrangements being put in place but I am keen that, as a nation, we show respect and our condolences ... and if they would like for us to try and bring back the bodies of their loved ones with dignity and respect that is something we can do."

Mr Cameron, who is chairing another meeting of the COBRA emergency committee today, said the Government was working as fast as it could to try to get information to the families of those involved in the tragedy.

He also appealed to people to stop using the term Islamic State. He said: "What it is is an appalling barbarous regime that is a perversion of the religion of Islam and many Muslims listening to this programme will recoil every time they hear the words."

His comments come after he wrote in The Daily Telegraph that "smiling gunman" Seifeddine Rezgui "was attacking the very things we stand for" - but that the "great British spirit" would triumph in the face of adversity.

He wrote: "We must be stronger at standing up for our values - of peace, democracy, tolerance, freedom. We must be more intolerant of intolerance - rejecting anyone whose views condone the Islamist extremist narrative and create the conditions for it to flourish.

"We must strengthen our institutions that put our values into practice: our democracy, our rule of law, the rights of minorities, our free media, our law enforcements - all the things the terrorists hate."

He said: "We are the people who stand up to hatred. They are the cowards who murder defenceless people on a beach. They stand for oppression; we stand for freedom, and a peaceful, tolerant way of life."

Mr Cameron questioned how a day at the beach for families and friends could have turned into a scene of horror.

"Britain is a nation united in shock and in grief," he wrote.

"The man who did this, the smiling gunman with a Kalashnikov hidden in a parasol, demonstrates the level of evil we are dealing with.

"But we will not be cowed. To our shock and grief we must add another word: resolve. Unshakeable resolve. We will stand up for our way of life. So ours must be a full-spectrum response - a response at home and abroad; in the immediate aftermath and far into the future."

The Prime Minister said the international community must do more to work together to combat the threat from Islamic State, and stressed that police and security services must be given the "tools they need to root out this poison".

He said: "Isil (IS) may use ancient barbarism in its methods of killing, but it is modern in its propaganda techniques, using social media as its primary weapon.

"That is why we must give our police and security services the tools they need to root out this poison. And we must look at how we can work with countries like Tunisia to counter this online propaganda.

"We must also deal with it at its source, in places like Syria, Iraq and Libya, from where Isil is peddling and plotting its death cult. That means supporting governments to strengthen weak political institutions and tackle political instability."