BAGHDAD/PARIS, March 13 (Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday condemned an attack in northern Iraq that killed one French officer and wounded several soldiers in the Erbil region.
Six French soldiers providing counter-terrorism training in the region were wounded in a drone attack, France’s army said on Thursday, just hours after an Italian base was also targeted in the area.
France has hundreds of troops based in the Erbil region as part of a broader international coalition to fight Islamic State militants in the area.
In a post on X, Macron said Chief Warrant Officer Arnaud Frion “died for France” and several of our soldiers have been injured in the attack.
“This attack against our forces engaged in the fight against Daesh (ISIS) since 2015 is unacceptable,” he said.
“Their (French soldiers) presence in Iraq is strictly within the framework of the fight against terrorism. The war in Iran cannot justify such attacks.”
It was not immediately clear where the drone had come from.
Iraqi Shi’ite militants have picked up the pace of drone and missile attacks on U.S. interests in Iraq in the last three to four days, according to three Iraqi security sources and two sources close to the groups.
Erbil Governor Omed Koshnaw said in a statement that the drone attack was in the Makhmour area.
An overnight airstrike that hit an Italian military base in Iraqi Kurdistan was deliberate, the Italian defence ministry said earlier on Thursday, targeting a facility hosting NATO personnel.
France is deploying about a dozen naval vessels, including its aircraft carrier strike group, to the Mediterranean, Red Sea and potentially the Strait of Hormuz as part of defensive support to allies threatened by the conflict in the Middle East.
The leaders of Iran, Israel and the United States all voiced defiance and vowed to fight on as the Middle East war approached the two-week mark on Friday, killing thousands of people, disrupting the lives of millions of others and shaking financial markets.
(Reporting by John Irish, Ahmed Rasheed and Mrinmay Dey; Editing by David Gregorio and Michael Perry)
