France Would Lead Its Own War Against French Jihadists In Mosul

Members of the Iraqi army, northwest of Mosul, on 5 May 2017.

In France, an article in the Wall Street Journal is controversial in the defense circles. According to US journalists, the French special forces would appeal to the Iraqi army for months to eliminate the French jihadists settled in Mosul. A part of the Iraqi army would, therefore, be employed as a subcontractor to carry out extrajudicial executions. Charges rejected in the entourage of the special forces, which specifies that the priority remains "  to arrest and capture these jihadists  ", but recognizes that there is indeed an exchange of information with the Iraqi troops.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the French special forces are waging their own war in the streets of Mosul, seeking to trace the jihadist French settled in this former bastion of the Islamic State organization.

To believe Iraqi officers interviewed by the newspaper, the French, under the Iraqi uniform, looking and locate targets of interest, but these are the Iraqi soldiers, in some way, "finish the job" in the Physically eliminating.

A list of some 30 targeted jihadists

Iraqis as subcontractors to the hunt for French terrorists in Iraq? This is false, it is said among the entourage of the French special forces. "  The French special forces are there in support of the Iraqi army, we never ask the artillery to bombard the presumed positions of French or other jihadists in the city. We support our partners, we collect and we exchange intelligence, that's all.  "

The article, however, mentions a list of important targets, containing the photographs of some thirty French jihadists provided by the services at the time of the Battle of Mosul. The names of the French of Mosul are known, recalls a specialist of the jihadist movements:

Abdellilah Himiche, aka Abu Soulemeyman, the former legionnaire who became brigade leader; Maxime Hauchard, the Norman party to do the jihad under the name of Abu Abdallah, became one of the executioners of the EI; And of course Rachid Kassim, the brain of several attacks carried out in France, which would also have been killed by a drone strike.

In the article in the Wall Street Journal, a senior Iraqi official concludes: "  The French prefer to deal with it here because they do not want to have to do it at home in France. "