French Ground Soldiers Enter Syria – Which Bolsters US Military Operations

(The AEGIS Alliance) – A number that is not specified of French special forces soldiers were crossing the Syrian border into the Kurdish region on Thursday, and entered a town named Rmelan. The soldiers made their entrance from positions they had previously held in the country’s neighbor of Iraq.

The specific scale of the French military’s presence in Syrian land remains unclear, although Turkish media reported that French soldiers are present and are located at five separate military bases, and they are all in northern Kurdish territory in Syria. There aren’t believed to be any French soldiers in Manbij, a contested city.

James Mattis, United States Defense Secretary was seen praising the French forces with his comments to Congress, stating they bolster the United States anti-ISIS Daesh operations taking place in Syria, and have been for the past three weeks. He states France is a large part of a “re-energized effort” in the fight against the ISIS Daesh.

France’s has a substantial presence in Kurdish controlled Rojava and is risking being a source of tensions when it comes to the country of Turkey. Turkey is known to be openly public in its anger directed at the United States for having soldiers in northern Syrian lands. President Erdogan gave a warning that France should not make the same mistakes the United States has.

However, the invasion of northern Syria by Turkey has slowed down in recent weeks. Despite many talks of going against the Kurds, along with Western soldiers backing the Kurds, there hasn’t been any sign of such efforts.

Featured Image: CC/Flickr/7th Army Training Command

Kyle James Lee – The AEGIS Alliance – This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.