Hollande backs war against jihadists
Western support for military action against Islamic State (IS) jihadists is key to preventing attacks at home, French President Francois Hollande said on Monday in Iraq, where yet another bombing killed dozens.
A suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden car on a square in Baghdad’s Sadr City neighbourhood, killing 32 people in the latest attack on the Iraqi capital claimed by IS.
France, one of the most active members of the US-led coalition fighting the Sunni extremist group, is particularly concerned over the return of a large contingent of French jihadists from Syria and Iraq.
“Taking action against terrorism here in Iraq is also preventing acts of terrorism on our own soil,” Hollande said at a base where French soldiers have been training elite Iraqi forces.
Hollande, the only major western head of state to have visited Baghdad since the coalition was set up in 2014, stressed that supporting Iraq was one of the surest ways of securing Europe. Of European countries targeted by terror attacks claimed or inspired by IS, France has been the worst hit.
Besides the defeated jihadist fighters who are expected to return to Europe in the coming months, radicalised children who grew up in the “caliphate” IS proclaimed in 2014 are also seen as ticking bombs.
TAKING ACTION AGAINST TERRORISM HERE IN IRAQ IS ALSO PREVENTING ACTS OF TERRORISM ON OUR OWN SOIL
“We will have to deal with the issue of the return of foreign fighters ... who committed crimes, who brought their families with them, including in some cases very young children,” Hollande said.
Since it joined the US in the coalition in September 2014, France says its warplanes have conducted 5,700 sorties, about 1,000 strikes and destroyed more than 1,700 targets. France has 14 Rafale fighter jets that are stationed in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates and taking part in coalition operations.
Hollande said the recapture of Mosul, Iraq’s second city and the jihadists’ last major bastion in the country, was a matter of weeks but warned efforts should then focus on Raqa in Syria.
“If Daesh is eradicated in Iraq but remains in Syria, we know full well that acts will be carried out here in the Middle East but also on our own soil in France, in Europe.”
He met Iraqi President Fuad Masum, a Kurd, and Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, from the largest Shiite political bloc, and called for reconciliation and unity after IS is defeated.
Hollande began his trip with a visit to a base near Baghdad where French forces are training Iraq’s elite Counter-Terrorism Service, the force that has spearheaded most major anti-IS operations in Iraq.