France says it carried out missile strikes against ISIS in Syria last weekend

PHOTO CAPTION: Illustrative photo — An ISIS fighter is seen in the Iraqi city of Mosul, 2014. (Reuters/Stringer) 

PARIS (Reuters) - France carried out missile strikes last weekend in Syria, targeting Islamic State sites in the country, French Armed Forces Minister Sebastien Lecornu said on Tuesday.

"On Sunday, French air forces carried out targeted strikes against Islamic State sites based on Syrian territory," Lecornu wrote on social media platform X.

The French airstrike followed a similar military strike by the United States in Syria, which the U.S. said had killed two Islamic State operatives.

Syria faces an uncertain political future after the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group ousted former President Bashar al-Assad on Dec. 8.

The lightning campaign led by HTS ended a 13-year civil war, but it has left a host of questions about the future of a multi-ethnic country where foreign states including Turkey and Russia have strong and potentially competing interests.



(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Sharon Singleton)