French Special Forces Attract Iraqi Servicemen to Kill Frenchmen Joining Daesh

French special services have for months attracted Iraqi servicemen to track and kill Frenchmen, who have joined the Islamic State (Daesh) terrorist group, media reported Monday citing Iraqi officers and French officials.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — According to The Wall Street Journal, French military have provided the Iraqi counterterrorism forces with 30 names of French nationals identified as high-value targets, and French intelligence information has allowed to kill an undisclosed number of Frenchmen, who joined Daesh.

A foreign affairs adviser to the French government told the media outlet that the aim of this secret operation was to ensure that French nationals, who had taken the jihadists' side, would never return to Europe for staging attacks.

"French forces work in close cooperation with their Iraqi and international partners," a French Defense Ministry spokeswoman said refusing to comment in detail on this operation.

A senior Iraqi police official showed the media outlet a list of 27 suspected Daesh members sought by the French authorities, as well as their photos, and said that the Iraqi security forces had obtained this list at the start of the operation to recapture Mosul in October 2016.

Daesh terrorist group has managed to seize large territories in Syria since the start of the civil war in the country in 2011. In 2014, jihadists launched a full scale offensive against Iraq, seizing a number of cities and towns including the second biggest Iraqi city of Mosul. The group has managed to recruit thousands of foreign nationals all over the world, with many of them returning to their home countries to carry out attacks against civilians.