The attack is the first such operation since the ousting of the former Syrian President Bashar Assad earlier in December
The French air force has launched airstrikes against Islamic State (IS, former ISIS) targets in Syria over the weekend, Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu confirmed on Tuesday. It is the first such development since the ousting of the former Syrian President Bashar Assad by a coalition of armed opposition groups led by Islamist movement Hayat Tahrir-al-Sham (HTS).
“On Sunday, French air assets carried out targeted strikes against Daesh sites on Syrian soil,” the minister said in a statement on social platform X, using an Arab acronym for ISIS. He also published a video showing the military operation. “Our armies remain engaged in the fight against terrorism” in the region, Lecornu said.
A short clip released by the minister starts with images of a French military pilot preparing for the mission followed by aerial footage demonstrating the bombing of what appears to be a small camp in the desert. The defense ministry in Paris told AFP that French Rafale fighter jets and American Reaper drones “dropped a total of seven bombs on two military targets belonging to Daesh in central Syria.”
France has been part of Operation Inherent Resolve – a US-led coalition aimed at combating terrorism in Syria and Iraq – since 2014 for operations in Iraq and since 2015 for operations in Syria. Washington has maintained a military presence in Syria’s oil-rich provinces over several years.
In mid-December, the Pentagon said that the number of US military personnel stationed at the bases in the Middle Eastern nation rose to 2,000, up from the previously reported figure of 900. The increase came “in light of the situation in Syria and the significant interest,” the Pentagon spokesman, Air Force Major General Pat Ryder, said at that time.
Bashar Assad’s government had repeatedly accused the US of deploying its troops to the Middle Eastern nation illegally and maintained that America was primarily “stealing oil” from the country. In August 2022, Syrian and Russian officials claimed that US-affiliated entities were illegally exporting up to 66,000 barrels of oil daily from the country.
In early December, Assad was forced to leave his position as president and flee the country, ultimately seeking asylum in Russia. The move was prompted by a sudden offensive of several armed opposition groups led by HTS, which captured vast territories across Syria in a matter of days and eventually seized the capital, Damascus.
