Overnight: France launches first airstrikes against ISIS
“The objective was hit and completely destroyed.”
The BBC reports:
A statement said planes had attacked an IS logistics depot in north-east Iraq.
France was already carrying out reconnaissance flights over Iraq and providing weapons to Kurdish fighters.
President Hollande said on Thursday that French air strikes would only target the jihadist group’s positions in Iraq, and not neighbouring Syria.
He also insisted that he would not send ground troops.
On Friday, Mr Hollande’s office said Rafale planes had carried out the attack and “the objective was hit and completely destroyed”.
Yesterday, French President François Hollande pledged his support to the U.S.-led campaign in the Middle East, citing an international duty to confront “unremitting brutality:”
The Islamic State, also known by the acronyms ISIS or ISIL, “massacres anyone who resists it; hunts minorities, notably Christians; commits atrocities against civilians; decapitates journalists; crucifies opponents; kidnaps women,” he said. “That is the movement we are up against.”
Mr. Hollande traveled to Baghdad last week to help mobilize support for military strikes against Islamic militants. On Thursday, he said he had met with his top miliary advisers and had agreed to Iraq’s request for air support to reinforce Iraqi soldiers and Kurdish fighters. He said French fighter jets would strike once targets had been identified. “That means in a short time frame,” he said.
This is a bold move for Hollande, considering his dismal approval rating (13%), and the fact that his coalition in parliament recently survived a vote of “no confidence.” He did, however, show the same reservation as did President Obama; both men have limited the scope of their commitment to the anti-ISIS movement to air strikes, and balked at the idea of putting boots on the ground.
Hollande differs from Obama in the area to which he is willing to commit French troops. He said in a press conference Thursday that he will limit France’s involvement to air strikes in Iraq. Both Hollande and his Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, have cautioned against appearing too friendly with the Assad regime in Syria.
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Comments
Well, there’s always the Foreign Legion. They’re not French citizens, so their boots don’t count.
White House: It’s not combat, but US troops will return fire if they’re shot at …
I was sure that was a quote from the LBJ White House.
This is like déjà vu all over again, some 51 years later.
Yes. Lyndon Baines Obama.
Let France handle Obama’s terrorists. We wasted our opportunity, blood, and treasure in Iraq, the Levant, and elsewhere with a premature evacuation.
French pinpricks instead of US pinpricks. This changes… anything?
I get the impression that the Republican support for training “moderate” rebels to fight ISIL is based on cynicism.
It feels like a reenactment of Genesis 18:16-33 …
And the LORD replied, “If I find fifty righteous people in Sodom, I will spare the entire city for their sake.”
The Republicans doubt that Obama can find any “moderate” rebels to save his foreign policy.
10 years of training Iraqis left a force that dropped its weapons and ran from ISIS. We’re going to quickly train and arm a far smaller force of Syrian rebels to take on Assad and ISIS simultaneously?
I think this is all happy talk to push the issue past the midterms.
What I fear is that polling gets so irredemmably* bad that in October Obama goes nuts and orders a full scale invasion of Syria. Surprise!
*Is this even a word?
Do you really “fear that Obama goes nuts’?
In the mean time he has protected the Kurds and stopped ISIS’s advance. Seems pretty good, if you can get past the reflexive hatred. We were not the first, but the latest to break it.
The only reason Tyrant Obama the Liar cares about ISIL is because it affects polls and hurts his party in the midterm election. He is just pretending to fight them until the election is over. Did you notice how he is saying that it’s going to take years to defeat him? That’s so he won’t be blamed for the failure of his policies.
Just what makes Obama a ‘Tyrant’? Last I checked he was elected by more than 50% of the population, twice. Is he legally in office.
If he is a tyrant, why isn’t someone knocking on your door right now? Where are those FEMA concentration camps?