French jets strike ISIS targets in Mosul, Iraq

French Rafale jet fighters struck a suspected Islamic State target in Iraq for the first time yesterday, (Friday, Sept. 19, 2014 09:40 ET) expanding a U.S.-led military campaign against ISIS. The French Rafales hit “a logistics depot of the terrorists” near the city of Mosul. The mission lasted five hours, and included three aerial refuelling from KC-135 FR tankers.

A previous mission which took place earlier last week involved The mission involve two Dassault Rafale fighter jets from No 3/30 squadron “Lorrain”, flying intelligence gathering missions carrying the RecoNG recce pod.

French Navy Atlantique 2 maritime patrol and Anti Submarine Warfare (ASW) aircraft that was assigned to patrols over the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean was also diverted to carry out intelligence gathering missions over Northern Iraq. The aircraft carried out 10 hour patrols last week and also supported the French Air Force air attack on Friday.

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