French airstrikes on ISIL are not a strategic shift

Analysis: Retaliatory raids after Paris massacre are part of existing coalition campaign, with targets identified by US

November 16, 2015 3:05PM ET

by Tom Kutsch @tomkutsch

Within 48 hours of Friday’s Paris massacres, France announced retaliatory airstrikes against positions in Syria held by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). But the French military response represents a continuation of the existing U.S.-led air campaign against the armed group, rather than a new strategy.

France announced Sunday it had dropped 20 bombs, targeting, according the defense ministry, a recruitment and training area, as well as a munitions warehouse.

“France has always said that because she has been threatened and attacked by Daesh, it would be normal that she would react in the framework of self-defense. That’s what we did today on Raqqa,” said French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on Sunday on the sidelines of the G-20 in Turkey, using an Arabic acronym for ISIL. “We can’t let Daesh act without reacting,” he said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based group that has activists across Syria, confirmed that the strikes had hit their targets. The group said no casualties were reported.

"The skies of Raqqa were crowded with warplanes yesterday," a member of the activist group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently told Reuters. "Several sides targeted the city, creating a state of terror among the citizens, who expect to be the ones who will pay the price for what Daesh did."

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But there was nothing new about French participation in the air campaign in Syria, which began in September. As with its prior strikes, Sunday’s raids were conducted jointly with the Pentagon, which takes the lead in coordinating and identifying targets for all of the strikes undertaken by other coalition nations.

While France now appears willing to assume a greater role within the international campaign against ISIL, that effort appears unlikely to move beyond an air campaign to blunt ISIL territorial advances in Syria and Iraq. Rolling back the group significantly would require the deployment of extensive ground forces. A Kurdish Peshmerga force, which wrested control of the Iraqi town of Sinjar from some 600 ISIS fighters last week, consisted of about 7,500 fighters, supported by coalition air strikes.

President Barack Obama and others have repeatedly ruled out the use of ground troops against ISIL. While pledging support to France Monday, including increased intelligence sharing between the two countries, Obama said Monday the introduction of ground troops would be a mistake. “Not because our military could not march into Mosul or Raqqa or Ramadi…but because we would see a repetition of what we’ve seen before,” referring to Iraq and Afghanistan, where enemy forces were able to retake towns after U.S. troops departed.

“France is at war,” French Prime Minister Francois Hollande said in a speech to the French parliament Monday. He expressed hope for forming a grand international coalition against ISIL, including Russia, in the coming weeks.

But Russia is currently conducting its own air campaign against Syrian targets, with different priorities. Its targets include ISIL, but Moscow supports the government of Bashar Al-Assad in Syria, and has focused much of its aerial campaign on non-ISIL rebel groups that oppose Assad. France, the U.S. and their allies oppose Assad and have avoided coordinating with Russia on targeting ISIL in the country.

It’s not clear whether Hollande envisions a change to the status quo in how the international coalition is run, and whether France would try to coordinate with Russia.

It’s also not clear whether Hollande would consider sending in ground troops. France has deployed ground troops in Mali, to thwart the advance of forces aligned with Al-Qaeda, but there has been no indication of any intention to put boots on the ground in Syria.

For now, the bulk of the French response to Friday’s attacks has come in the form of police raids across multiple Euopean cities that have led to the detention of scores of individuals. Hollande is also pushing to extend a state of emergency in the country, which allows French police to detain suspects without a warrant.

French authorities face the same dilemma as the U.S. and their allies in using air power against ISIL in urban centers, where the risk of inflicting civilian casualties is higher. Refugees who fled the ISIL-controlled city last summer told Al Jazeera that the group had managed to establish a harsh form of governance over the city despite frequent coalition bombing raids. Anti-ISIL activists also told Al Jazeera last month that the group had begun forcibly conscripting local young men into its fighting forces.