The French air strikes launched against the Islamic State group jihadists in Syria on Sunday may win Paris political capital, but are unlikely to yield serious military gains or stop terrorist attacks, some experts are arguing.

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The strikes were announced on the eve of the UN General Assembly in New York where Syria is back in the diplomatic limelight after four years of grinding war that has seen tens of thousands of refugees fleeing to Europe.

France, which has been the target of a series of terrorist attacks, has argued that its decision to launch airstrikes against IS group is a form of self-defence.

President François Hollande announced Sunday that, "France hit a training camp of the terrorist group Daesh [IS Group] that threatened our country's security."

The training camp near the Syrian border with Iraq was believed to have been set up by a French citizen earlier this summer.

“But we do not know if he was still there,” Wassim Nasr, FRANCE 24’s expert on Middle Eastern Jihadist networks, has pointed out. “The French government said there was a French link, but how can anyone know if there were French citizens there?”

Nasr also observed that France appears to be entering the murky and uncertain world of extra-judicial killings of its own citizens, like the USA and UK.

“How can we know [if these are legitimate targets] if we don’t officially judge these people?” he asked. “This trend [of killing one’s own citizens] is going to become more and more accepted by politicians, and they are preparing public opinion for these sorts of operations against jihadis.”

To underscore this, Hollande stated on Sunday that more airstrikes would likely follow.

FRANCE 24's wassim Nasr discusses the effectiveness of French air strikes in Syria

'Symbolic, political impact'

France has been part of the US-led coalition bombarding the IS group in Iraq since September 2014, and has carried out 215 out of nearly 4,500 strikes there, according to French and US figures.

However until now it refused to join the US, Canada, Turkey and Gulf states in attacking Syria, where the coalition has conducted some 2,500 airstrikes.

But the latest attempted jihadist attack in France – by a gunman on a Paris-bound high-speed train in August – ramped up political pressure on Paris which ordered surveillance flights over Syria two weeks ago.

France has been on high alert since Islamic extremists gunned down 17 people, including cartoonists at the famed satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, in Paris in January.

"What we want is to know what is being prepared against us and what is being done against the Syrian population," Hollande said when he announced France's intention to carry out strikes.

However he ruled out sending French ground forces into Syria, saying it would be "unrealistic."

Analyst Eric Denece, the director of the French intelligence think-tank CF2R, told AFP that as aerial attacks were not being accompanied by ground troops, the impact would be limited.

"We can already see it in Iraq, where the majority of American planes return to base without having dropped their bombs,” he said.

"And to say that we will prevent terrorist attacks in France thanks to air strikes in Syria is, and I am weighing my words, absolute bullshit," he added.

"When the Americans carry out thousands of strikes ... it can have a limited impact. But for France in Syria, it will only be a few symbolic strikes. It is gesticulation, smoke and mirrors to deceive the public."

Jihadists 'have adapted'

Faced with a highly mobile enemy dispersed among the population, the chances of destroying a training camp, command post or house where terrorists are planning attacks on France, are next to nothing, said a former high-placed official in French intelligence, speaking on condition of anonymity.

He said such camps no longer existed.

"Even if they have logistical or operational gatherings it is always fleeting. They know they are being observed continuously and they have adapted. They move all the time.

"What we (France) want is to show that we are present in Syria, that we must be included in the political solution that is being drawn up. In the same way the Russians are showing it by reinforcing their military presence" in Syria.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)



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