French soldiers wounded in suspected Daesh drone strike

Two French soldiers were badly wounded in Iraq and two Peshmerga fighters were killed by a booby trapped drone sent by a group connected to Daesh, Le Monde reported yesterday.

In what could be the first reported attack by Daesh militants on French special forces using a drone, the device was intercepted while flying and exploded after landing on the ground, the paper said.

Le Monde said the attack happened earlier this month on 2 October. It was not clear whether the device was remotely detonated or if it carried a timed bomb, or even who the group that carried out the attack were.

While there were no clear details about who the perpetrators were or even the precise location of the attack, a Kurdish militant group called Ansar Al-Islam was previously very active in northern Iraq.

Ansar Al-Islam were linked to Al-Qaeda, and worked alongside Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, the former leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq killed in a US airstrike in 2006.

The two French soldiers were immediately repatriated to receive medical treatment in France. One of them “is between life and death,” Le Monde wrote.

Other French soldiers were also lightly wounded by the explosion but Le Monde did not give precise numbers.

France has about 500 military personnel in Iraq as part of a US-led coalition to fight Daesh militants. These include special forces that have been training Kurdish Peshmerga militias in the north of the country.

The French government confirmed that two of its special forces soldiers were harmed but they did not comment further on the Le Monde report due to a longstanding policy of not discussing special forces operations.

According to Reuters, an Iraqi military spokesman in Baghdad could not confirm the report and Peshmerga sources were not immediately available for comment.