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France Says It Carried Out Missile Strikes against ISIS in Syria Last Weekend

French Minister of Defense Sebastien Lecornu leaving the presidential Elysee Palace in Paris after the weekly cabinet meeting, on October 1, 2024. (AFP)
French Minister of Defense Sebastien Lecornu leaving the presidential Elysee Palace in Paris after the weekly cabinet meeting, on October 1, 2024. (AFP)
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France Says It Carried Out Missile Strikes against ISIS in Syria Last Weekend

French Minister of Defense Sebastien Lecornu leaving the presidential Elysee Palace in Paris after the weekly cabinet meeting, on October 1, 2024. (AFP)
French Minister of Defense Sebastien Lecornu leaving the presidential Elysee Palace in Paris after the weekly cabinet meeting, on October 1, 2024. (AFP)

France carried out missile strikes last weekend in Syria, targeting ISIS sites in the country, French Armed Forces Minister Sebastien Lecornu said on Tuesday.

"On Sunday, French air forces carried out targeted strikes against Islamic State sites based on Syrian territory," Lecornu wrote on social media platform X.

The French airstrike followed a similar military strike by the United States in Syria, which the US said had killed two ISIS operatives.

Syria faces an uncertain political future after the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group ousted former President Bashar al-Assad on Dec. 8.

The lightning campaign led by HTS ended a 13-year civil war, but it has left a host of questions about the future of a multi-ethnic country where foreign states including Türkiye and Russia have strong and potentially competing interests.

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Lebanon's New President Says to Ensure State Has Exclusive Right to Carry Arms

This handout photo released by the Lebanese parliament shows Newly elected Lebanese president Joseph Aoun delivering a speech after his election in Beirut, on January 9, 2025. (Photo by LEBANESE PARLIAMENT / AFP)
This handout photo released by the Lebanese parliament shows Newly elected Lebanese president Joseph Aoun delivering a speech after his election in Beirut, on January 9, 2025. (Photo by LEBANESE PARLIAMENT / AFP)
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Lebanon's New President Says to Ensure State Has Exclusive Right to Carry Arms

This handout photo released by the Lebanese parliament shows Newly elected Lebanese president Joseph Aoun delivering a speech after his election in Beirut, on January 9, 2025. (Photo by LEBANESE PARLIAMENT / AFP)
This handout photo released by the Lebanese parliament shows Newly elected Lebanese president Joseph Aoun delivering a speech after his election in Beirut, on January 9, 2025. (Photo by LEBANESE PARLIAMENT / AFP)

Lebanon's newly elected President Joseph Aoun told lawmakers on Thursday that he will work to ensure the state has the exclusive right to carry arms, in his first speech at parliament after he was elected.

His comments were seen partly as a reference to Hezbollah's arsenal, which he had not commented on publicly as the former army commander.

In a first round of voting Thursday, Aoun received 71 out of 128 votes but fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to win outright. Of the rest, 37 lawmakers cast blank ballots and 14 voted for “sovereignty and the constitution.”
In the second round, he received 99 votes.

In his speech in parliament, Aoun also pledged to carry out reforms to the judicial system and fight corruption.

He promised to control the country’s borders and “ensure the activation of the security services and to discuss a strategic defense policy that will enable the Lebanese state to remove the Israeli occupation from all Lebanese territories” in southern Lebanon, where the Israeli military has not yet withdrawn from dozens of villages.

He also vowed to reconstruct “what the Israeli army destroyed in the south, east and (Beirut’s southern) suburbs.”

Thursday’s vote came weeks after a tenuous ceasefire agreement halted a 14-month conflict between Israel and Hezbollah and at a time when Lebanon’s leaders are seeking international assistance for reconstruction.

Aoun said he would call for parliamentary consultations as soon as possible on naming a new prime minister.