PARIS — France is back at America’s side in conducting military strikes in Iraq.
More than a decade after spurning President George W. Bush’s war against Saddam Hussein, France on Friday became the first country to join U.S. forces pounding targets inside Iraq from the air in recent weeks — this time in pursuit of terrorists of the Islamic State.
Flying from the United Arab Emirates, two French Rafale jets fired four laser-guided bombs to destroy a weapons and fuel depot outside the northern city of Mosul, part of the territory the militants have overrun in Iraq and neighboring Syria, officials said.
An Iraqi military spokesman said dozens of extremist fighters were killed in the strikes. A French military official said a damage assessment had not been completed, while showing reporters aerial images of targets hit. Officials said it was at a former military installation seized by the group.
One analyst said the French action was more symbolic than substantive — France’s military means in the region are limited — but it could give political cover for other allies to join in and show that the U.S. is not acting alone in a country still sown with deadly violence 11 years after Saddam’s ouster.
“We are facing throat-cutters,” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said at a meeting of the U.N. Security Council that was called to show support for Iraq’s government in battling the terrorists. “They rape, crucify and decapitate. They use cruelty as a means of propaganda. Their aim is to erase borders and to eradicate the rule of law and civil society.”
For all his political and economic troubles at home, French President Francois Hollande has again showed that he will use force to fight Islamic terrorists to help a beleaguered government.
Other such operations in Iraq would continue in coming days, Hollande said, “with the same goal — to weaken this terrorist organization and come to the aid of the Iraqi authorities.”
“In no case will there be French troops on the ground: This is only about planes that, in liaison with Iraqi authorities (and) in coordination with our allies, will allow for a weakening of the terrorist organization,” he said.
Hollande stressed that France’s actions were limited to supporting the Iraqi military or Kurdish Peshmerga forces and wouldn’t involve targets in Syria.
Not so long ago, coordinated French and U.S. military strikes in Iraq might have been unthinkable. But feeding off sectarian strife in Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State has destabilized the region and become a lure for jihad-minded youths from France, elsewhere in Europe and beyond.
Hollande said France is operating independently in Iraq, based on a request for airstrikes from Baghdad and in coordination with its allies. The U.S. Central Command said Thursday that the U.S. military has conducted 176 airstrikes in Iraq since Aug. 8.
The U.N. Security Council condemned the Islamic State in a presidential statement approved Friday by all 15 members in a session chaired by U.S. Secretary of State JohnKerry.
