ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - French President Emmanuel Macron early Friday said a French soldier was killed in Erbil following a drone attack targeting a joint Peshmerga-French military base that also left several personnel injured, describing the strike as “unacceptable.”
“Chief Warrant Officer Arnaud Frion of the 7th Alpine Hunter Battalion of Varces died for France during an attack in the Erbil region in Iraq,” Macron said in a post on X. “To his family and comrades-in-arms, I want to express all the affection and solidarity of the Nation.”
Several French soldiers were injured late Thursday in the drone attack targeting the joint Kurdish military base about 60 kilometers southwest of Erbil.
“France stands with them and their loved ones,” Macron said.
“This attack against our forces, who have been engaged in the fight against ISIS since 2015, is unacceptable,” he said, adding that “their presence in Iraq is strictly within the framework of the fight against terrorism. The war in Iran cannot justify such attacks.”
Senior Peshmerga commander Sirwan Barzani told Rudaw late Thursday that seven French personnel were injured at the base, which hosts French military advisers and trainers who “have nothing to do with war and conflict and are only military advisors who are legally in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region.”
He described the attack as unlawful and called on Baghdad to take action.
Erbil Governor Omed Xoshnaw said Thursday that no Peshmerga personnel were harmed in the attack.
France maintains hundreds of troops in the Kurdistan Region, where its forces train Peshmerga fighters as part of the global coalition against the Islamic State (ISIS).
The Kurdistan Region has been targeted by repeated drone and missile attacks since the start of Iran’s war with the US-Israel coalition on February 28.
Italian officials said Thursday that their base in the Kurdish capital was targeted by an explosive-laden drone late Wednesday. However, Xoshnaw said the reported attack was actually debris from an intercepted drone that fell near the base.