“On Sunday, French air assets carried out targeted strikes against Daesh [ISIS] sites on Syrian soil,” Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu said on X.
The defense ministry told AFP that French fighter jets and US drones “dropped a total of seven bombs” on ISIS targets in central Syria.
The strike was the first carried out by French forces in Syria since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime on December 8 to a coalition of rebels spearheaded by the Islamist Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
“Our armies remain engaged in the fight against terrorism in the Levant,” Lecornu stressed.
France has been an integral part of the US-led Operation Inherent Resolve, which assists Iraqi, Kurdish, and local Syrian forces in the fight against ISIS.
In mid-December, the Pentagon said it more than doubled the number of US troops in Syria from approximately 900 to nearly 2,000.
US troops in Syria have provided the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), their partner force in northeast Syria (Rojava), with training and military support.
They have also recently carried out frequent strikes against ISIS targets in the country to prevent the group from exploiting a security vacuum after the fall of the regime.