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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
France to provide airstrikes in battle for Raqqa
2016-11-07
[AlAhram] La Belle France's defense minister says it will provide Arclight airstrikes to aid an offensive against the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
-held city of Raqqa in northern Syria.

Jean-Yves Le Drian told French radio Europe 1 on Sunday that "local territorial forces" should retake Raqqa, with air support from French, American and other coalition forces but no foreign ground troops.

The Syria Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led group that includes Arab fighters and is backed by U.S. air power, announced the offensive earlier on Sunday. Raqqa is the de facto capital of the bad boy group's self-styled Islamic caliphate.

La Belle France has long suspected that IS planned last year's Gay Paree attacks in Raqqa.

Le Drian linked the battle for Raqqa with the Iraqi offensive against the IS-held city of djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
. The two cities are the largest urban areas still under IS control.

La Belle France began striking IS targets in Iraq in 2014 and in Syria the following year, including in Raqqa.
Posted by:trailing wife

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