British and French warplanes struck an underground facility in Syria that, according to the UK Ministry of Defence, was being used by Islamic State militants to store weapons. The raid took place on Saturday evening and targeted a site in mountainous terrain north of the Syrian city of Palmyra, where weapons and explosives were believed to be kept. French aircraft joined the strikes carried out by RAF Typhoon FGR4 fighter jets.
UK defence secretary John Healey said the operation demonstrated London’s determination to “stand shoulder to shoulder with our allies” and to thwart any attempt by Daesh to stage a resurgence and revive its violent ideology in the Middle East. The ministry said there were no civilians in the target area and no indications of a threat to the local population. An initial assessment, it added, suggests that “the target was successfully hit”.
The joint UK-French strike followed a series of US attacks in December on sites that Washington described as Islamic State targets in Syria. Those strikes were carried out in response to an ambush that killed two US service members and a civilian interpreter. US Central Command said the attack on American personnel was “an ambush by a lone IS gunman” and took place during a counterterrorism operation, a description echoed by the Pentagon.
According to Centcom, the subsequent US strikes hit more than 70 targets, followed by 10 operations in Syria and Iraq in which 23 “terrorist operatives” were killed or detained. A decade ago, IS militants launched a rapid offensive across Iraq and Syria, seizing territory roughly the size of the UK. Although the group was driven from its last territorial strongholds in 2019, it continues to operate as a network of cells in Syria and to carry out attacks.
In recent months, Syria has seen a rise in attacks by militants linked to IS or other extremist groups, including a deadly blast at a mosque in an Alawite district of Homs last month and a suicide attack that killed a security officer in Aleppo on New Year’s Eve. Government security forces say they have carried out raids against IS cells over the same period, as President Ahmed al-Sharaa seeks to reassert control over the country’s security situation.
Since seizing power just over a year ago, al-Sharaa has worked to restore external ties, including with the United States, after decades of rule by the Assad family and 14 years of a devastating civil war that left Syria internationally isolated. In November, he became the first Syrian president to visit the White House since the country gained independence in 1946, met US president Donald Trump, and formally joined the 89-nation coalition fighting Islamic State.