French « ex-military » operatives with Daesh jihadists

The French Minister of Defence, Jean-Yves Le Drian, has confirmed the information from Radio France International stating that a dozen French « ex- » soldiers are currently fighting on the side of the jihadists. He specified that such cases were extremely rare.

In this case, just as in previous cases, all the French « ex- » soldiers implicated in the jihadist forces were either (French Foreign) legionnaires or members of the DGSE - the minister could have launched an administrative enquiry about the recruiting of jihadistes with these two groups. Instead, he has done nothing.

As for us, we can confirm that these « ex- » soldiers no longer take their orders from the Ministry of Defence, but are mandated by the Élysée, at the express demand of General Benoît Puga, Chief of Staff for the President of the Republic (photo).

Already in Febraury 2012, 19 French soldiers were arrested in Syria while they were supervising the jihadists of the « Free Syrian Army » [1]. They were released in two groups within the framework of a political agreement reached with President Sarkozy during the liberation of Baba Amr, where France had set up an Islamic Emirate. When he came in person to the Syro-Lebanese frontier to welcome the first group of freed prisoners, Admiral Édouard Guillaud, Chief of Staff for the French military, pretended that these men were « ex- » legionnaires. However, the NATO communications apparatus that they were carrying when they were arrested, as well as the honours bestowed upon them by the Admiral, indicate that this was not true.

In January 2014, France and Turkey had armed al-Qaïda for the Islamic Emirat in Iraq and the East (ÉIIL), as confirmed by a document presented by the Syrian ambassador to the UNO, and which French ambassador Gérard Araud did not refute [2]. It was at that time a question of preventing the US plan for the creation of an independent Kurdistan in Iraq and Northern Syria. But after an agreement with the United States, in May 2014, France ceased hostilities against l’ÉIIL, and sent military advisers. In June 2014, EIIL became the Islamic Emirate (Daesh), proclaimed the califat, and ethnically cleansed part of Irak. During the bombing of the anti-Daesh Coalition, Paris and Washington worked to push the Islamists back to the lines that they had been attributed (Wright plan), but without inflicting any substantial losses. Nonetheless, in November 2014, the United States used this operation to eliminate David Drugeon, whom the anti-US Press insistently presented as an officer of the DGSE incorporated with al-Qaïda [3].

The last French soldiers to lose their lives in combat against the Army of the Arab-Syrian Republic died in April 2014, while they were attacking the Christian village of Sadniyé at the head of a group of elements of al-Qaïda. A dozen bodies were found, and each one had a French flag tatooed on their shoulder.