Unlock Editor’s Digest for free
FT editor Roula Khalaf selects her favorite stories in this weekly newspaper.
Britain’s Defense Ministry has said British and French warplanes have bombed an underground facility in Syria used by ISIS militants to store weapons.
The attack was carried out on Saturday evening at a site in a mountainous area north of the Syrian city of Palmyra that is believed to be used by ISIS militants to store weapons and explosives, according to a British government statement. French jets joined in the attacks by RAF Typhoon FGR4s.
Britain’s Defense Secretary John Healey said, “This action reflects our determination to stand shoulder to shoulder with our allies, to prevent any resurgence of Daesh and their dangerous and violent ideologies in the Middle East.”
The ministry said there were no civilian residents in the vicinity of the targeted site and there was no indication that any threat to civilians was posed. It said preliminary assessments showed that “the target was successfully attacked”.
The joint UK-French strike comes after the US launched a series of strikes on ISIS targets in Syria in December in response to an ambush that killed two US soldiers and a civilian interpreter.
US Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, said the attack on US personnel was “an ambush by a lone ISIS gunman”. According to the Pentagon, this happened during an anti-terrorism operation.
CENTCOM said subsequent US strikes involved more than 70 targets and that it had since conducted 10 operations in Syria and Iraq, killing or detaining 23 “terrorist operatives”.
ISIS militants invaded Iraq and Syria a decade ago and captured land the size of Britain.
Although the group was driven from its remaining regional strongholds in 2019, it still operates a network of cells in Syria that has continued to carry out attacks.
Syria has recently grappled with a surge in attacks by ISIS-affiliated or extremist militants, including a deadly bombing of a mosque in the Alawite neighborhood of Homs last month and a suicide bomber killing a member of the security services in Aleppo on New Year’s Eve.
Government security forces have said they have carried out raids against ISIS cells in recent months as President Ahmed al-Sharaa seeks to assert security control over the country.
Since seizing power a year ago, Shaara has worked hard to woo his friends and allies, including the United States, after decades of Assad family rule and a devastating 14-year civil war left Syria internationally isolated.
In November he became the first Syrian president to visit the White House since Syria’s independence in 1946, meeting with US President Donald Trump and formally joining the 89-nation coalition to defeat ISIS.
