France Launches First Air Raids Over Syria Since Assad’s Overthrow

Now France is getting in on the Syria action in the wake of President Bashar al-Assad’s overthrow on December 8. Currently the hardline Islamist movement Hayat Tahrir-al-Sham (HTS) holds Damascus and major cities across southern, central, and coastal Syria.

The Turks hold parts of the north near the border (and Turkey’s proxies, particularly the the Syrian National Army, or SNA), while the United States still occupies the northeast (also through its proxy the Kurkish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF). The Israeli military holds an expanse out of the Golan Heights in the south.

France’s defense ministry announced Tuesday that its warplanes launched airstrikes against Islamic State (ISIS) over the weekend.

This marks the first such French strikes in Syria since HTS took over Damascus:

“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.

French Rafale fighter jets and American Reaper drones ”dropped a total of seven bombs on two military targets belonging to Daesh in central Syria,” the statement specified.

The ‘ISIS threat’ has also been cited by the Pentagon as ongoing justification for keeping some 2,000 or more American troops in Syria. The rationale for occupying Syria’s oil and gas fields has also been the ‘counter Iran’ mission, according to US officials.

But we should note the fact that ISIS has been relatively quiet since the HTS Jolani takeover of the country. Where are the big ISIS terror bombings of prior years when Assad held the country?

The reality is that ISIS terrorists are actually embedded with HTS and its foreign fighter affiliates, as recent American television footage has demonstrated.

The French government released footage of preparations for its weekend strikes on ISIS targets:

France says it carried out missile strikes against ISIS in Syria last weekendpic.twitter.com/iSECAEaz3Z

— Guy Elster (@guyelster) December 31, 2024

ISIS is the threat that keeps on giving: Western allies will stay in Syria for the time being while continually claiming that the coalition (Operation Inherent Resolve) must battle terrorists, even while giving tacit support to HTS in Damascus.

US-designated terrorist Abu Mohammad al-Julani of course began his jihadist career in Syria as a high-ranking member of ISIS and later al-Nusra Front (Al-Qaeda in Syria). As we highlighted previously, this is putting lipstick on a pig.