Syria government forces launched an operation Wednesday against jihadists holed up in a camp in the northwest, in a push to capture French fighters wanted by their government, a monitor and a French jihadist told AFP.
Security forces “launched a vast operation against the camp… to arrest French fighters wanted by their government,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The son of a prominent French jihadist in the camp, who goes by the alias Jibril al-Mouhajir, told AFP that “clashes erupted after midnight and are ongoing”.
Mouhajir said the French government had demanded “two French nationals from the group be handed over” to Syrian authorities.
A resident of the Harem region, where the camp is located near the Turkish border, told AFP he had seen government forces bringing reinforcements to the area beginning Tuesday and had heard explosions.
The group of foreign jihadists, Firqatul Ghuraba, is led by Omar Omsen, also known as Omar Diaby, a former Franco-Senegalese criminal turned preacher.
In September 2016, the United States designated Diaby, suspected of funnelling francophone fighters to Syria, as an “international terrorist”.
He is also wanted on a French arrest warrant.
French security sources have previously told AFP that “around 50” people are believed to be part of the group of jihadists.
The Syrian civil war, which erupted in 2011 with Assad’s brutal repression of anti-government protests, killed over half a million people.
Thousands of people from Europe travelled to Syria to fight alongside jihadist groups.
Like other armed groups, Diaby’s militants appear to have fallen out of favour with Syria’s new Islamist authorities, who took power after the overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December.
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© Agence France-Presse
