Dubai: A female pilot has led United Arab Emirates air strikes that targeted Islamic State jihadists in Syria as part of the US-led campaign against extremists. Major Mariam al-Mansouri, 35, “led the squadron” of UAE fighter jets that participated in raids on Tuesday against the extremists, an Emirati source familiar with the matter said.

Mansouri is the first female UAE pilot of a fighter jet. She graduated from Abu Dhabi’s Khalifa bin Zayed Air College in 2007 and is veteran pilot of F-16 warplanes.

Washington has said the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Jordan took part in the strikes on the Islamic State. The Sunni insurgents have seized swaths of Iraq and northern Syria. In the Iraqi city of Mosul, they had ordered women to wear full-face veils, which they say will prevent them “falling into humiliation and vulgarity”, according a report.

The extremists also listed guidelines on how clothes should be worn, part of a campaign to violently impose their radical brand of Islam.

Mansouri’s participation in the raid stirred a debate on social media networks, with supporters posting her picture and commending her service. “She is taking part in crushing the dens of Daesh,” wrote one woman on Twitter, using an Arabic acronym for IS. The UAE is a largely conservative Gulf state, where women citizens wear the traditional Islamic head cover and black Abaya loose cloak.

But authorities in the oil-rich state have made efforts to put pioneering women forward and many women have assumed top government positions.