{"id":672305,"date":"2026-01-04T01:26:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T01:26:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/672305\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T01:26:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T01:26:19","slug":"uk-and-france-carry-out-strike-on-syrian-underground-site-used-by-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/672305\/","title":{"rendered":"UK and France carry out strike on Syrian underground site \u2018used by IS\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Guided bombs were used to target a number of access tunnels down to the site, located in the mountains north of the ancient city of Palmyra in the centre of the country, on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n<p>The facility had been used \u201cby Daesh\u201d, most likely to store weapons and explosives, and the surrounding area is devoid of civilians, the UK Government said.<\/p>\n<p>A detailed assessment is under way and there are initial signs that the target was reached successfully, according to officials.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/2.82476742.jpg\" alt=\"John Healey\" data-title=\"John Healey speech\" data-copyright-holder=\"PA Wire\" data-copyright-notice=\"PA Wire\/PA Images\" data-credit=\"Stefan Rousseau\" data-usage-terms=\"\"  \/>Defence Secretary John Healey said the UK was determined to \u2018stand shoulder to shoulder with our allies\u2019 to \u2018stamp out any resurgence\u2019 of the terrorist movement (PA)<\/p>\n<p>RAF aircraft have carried out patrols over Syria to \u201cprevent any attempted resurgence\u201d of IS following its defeat at the battle of Baghuz in 2019, the ministry said.<\/p>\n<p>Defence Secretary John Healey said the UK was determined to \u201cstand shoulder to shoulder with our allies\u201d to \u201cstamp out any resurgence\u201d of the terrorist movement, also known as Daesh.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want to thank all the members of our armed forces involved in this operation for their professionalism and their courage,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey were among thousands of British personnel deployed over Christmas and New Year. This operation, to eliminate dangerous terrorists who threaten our way of life, shows how our armed forces are ready to step up, all year round, keeping Britain secure at home and strong abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Guided bombs were used to target a number of access tunnels down to the site, located in the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2000,299,36],"class_list":{"0":"post-672305","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-france"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115834230391152285","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}