The UK’s Ministry of Defence says an underground facility likely storing ISIL weapons was the target of the attack, but the area was ‘devoid of any civilian habitation’.
The United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence has said its aircraft joined France in striking an underground facility in Syria that had likely been used by the ISIL (ISIS) group to store weapons, as the group appears to be resurgent after a period of relative dormancy in the region.
“Royal Air Force aircraft have completed successful strikes against Daesh in a joint operation with France,” the ministry said of the Saturday night attack in a statement, using the Arabic acronym for ISIL.
The statement said the area, north of the ancient site of Palmyra, was “devoid of any civilian habitation”.
The United States military in late December said it had killed or captured about 25 ISIL fighters in a wave of attacks over nine days in Syria.
The Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees the US military’s Middle East operations, issued a statement on Tuesday marking the conclusion of the operations last month.
The campaign followed the killing of two US soldiers and a civilian interpreter by an ISIL attacker in Syria on December 13, and widespread US strikes against the group six days later.
The operation was the third of its kind in less than a week during the holiday season, and follows a deadly shootout on Tuesday between Turkish police and suspected ISIL members in the northwestern city of Yalova.
That clash killed three Turkish police and six suspected ISIL members, all Turkish nationals. A day later, Turkish security forces arrested 357 suspected ISIL members in a coordinated crackdown.
In 2017, when the group still held large swaths of neighbouring Syria and Iraq before being vanquished on the battlefield, ISIL attacked an Istanbul nightclub during New Year’s celebrations, killing 39 people. Istanbul prosecutor’s office said Turkish police had received intelligence that operatives were “planning attacks in Turkiye against non-Muslims in particular” this holiday season.
On top of maintaining sleeper cells in Turkiye, ISIL is still active in Syria, with which Turkiye shares a 900km (560-mile) border, and has carried out a spate of attacks there since the ouster of former President Bashar al-Assad last year.
Syria has faced mounting security challenges after more than 13 years of ruinous civil war that ended late in 2024 with the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad’s government.
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