David Cameron has made it clear his government is not launching air strikes against Islamic State for now. Photo: Reuters

Britain resisted pressure yesterday to join the United States in announcing air strikes against Islamic State after the militant group beheaded David Haines, a British hostage, and threatened to kill another Briton.

Speaking after chairing a meeting of the government’s COBR emergency-response committee in London, Prime Minister David Cameron said his government was battling IS on numerous fronts but made clear it was not, for now, launching air strikes.

“As this strategy intensifies, we are ready to take whatever steps are necessary to deal with this threat and keep our country safe,” he said, describing an approach that blended diplomatic pressure, supporting US action and helping Iraqi and local Kurdish authorities.

“Step by step, we must drive back, dismantle, and ultimately destroy Isil (IS) and what it stands for. We will do so in a calm, deliberate way, but with an iron determination,” he said in a TV statement from his offices.

Britain was quick to join US military action in Afghanistan and Iraq. But a war-weary public and Parliament’s rejection last year of air strikes on Syria have made Cameron cautious. Complicating his decision are the sensitivities surrounding Scotland’s independence referendum on Thursday.

US Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to discuss the aid worker’s beheading with British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond at a meeting in Paris today, one senior US State Department official said in Paris on condition of anonymity.

Complicating the British PM’s decision are the sensitivities surrounding Scotland’s independence referendum on Thursday

Foreign leaders, including US President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, and the office of French President Francois Hollande condemned the killing of Haines and expressed their condolences.

“The United States stands shoulder to shoulder tonight with our close friend and ally in grief and resolve,” Obama said in a statement.

During his own statement, Cameron outlined no plans to recall Parliament, which is in recess, to seek its authorisation for air strikes against IS. People familiar with his thinking say he has no immediate plans to do so.

His last attempt to get the British Parliament to back such air strikes, against Syria last year, failed to win the support of lawmakers, an embarrassing setback.

Video footage of the murder of Haines by IS militants fighting in Iraq and Syria means Cameron is under pressure to get tougher with IS. At the same time, he is trying to persuade Scotland to reject Independence in Thurs-day’s referendum.

He has said he is not ruling out any options to degrade IS, except deploying troops on the ground, and he is facing increasingly loud calls from some of his own Conservative lawmakers and from former military chiefs to join the US in launching air strikes.

But Scotland is his domestic priority, and he is aware that Scots have often been more sceptical of British military action overseas. Proposing air strikes now could risk alienating them before the independence vote.