French warplanes destroy IS tunnels in northern Iraq

French warplanes bombed "several caches and tunnels" belonging to the Islamic State (IS) group in northeast Iraq, the government said Friday, reiterating France's determination to continue hunting the radicals after the US pullout from neighbouring Syria. Writing on Twitter, Defence Minister Florence Parly said that Paris was giving "no respite" to IS, which was behind several deadly attacks in France in recent years, including the November 2015 massacre of 130 people in the French capital.

Alluding to the recent US withdrawal of troops from northeastern Syria - a move that outraged Washington's Western allies who fear a resurgence of IS in the region - Parly said: "The Middle East has been the scene of several U-turns recently. "But the position of France has been constant and its determination to fight terrorism is intact."

France is part of the US-led international coalition that has been carrying out airstrikes against IS in Iraq and Syria since 2014, in support of local forces that chased the jihadists out of their self-proclaimed, cross-border caliphate. Thursday's strike aimed to destroy "several tunnels used by Daesh as a rear base for its actions, and to degrade its logistical and military capabilities in the region," the French military's general staff said. It comes as IS reels from the death its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was killed by US special forces in a raid in northwest Syria last week - a killing confirmed Thursday by the jihadist group.