First French strike on Islamic State in Syria kills 30: monitor

President Francois Hollande said that six French warplanes hit an Islamic State training camp near Deir Ezzor city

BEIRUT: France's first air strike on the Islamic State group in Syria killed at least 30 militants, including 12 child soldiers, a monitoring group said on Wednesday.

"The French air strike (on Sunday) on an Islamic state training camp in eastern Syria killed at least 30 fighters including 12 from the 'Cubs of the Caliphate,'" said Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Islamic State calls its child soldiers "Cubs of the Caliphate".

Abdel Rahman said foreign fighters were also among the dead, and that the strike had wounded around 20 people.

The raid took place in Syria's eastern province of Deir Ezzor, near the Albu Kamal border crossing used by Islamic State to link the Syrian and Iraqi parts of its so-called "caliphate".

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President Francois Hollande said on Sunday that six French warplanes hit an Islamic State training camp near Deir Ezzor city, and that more strikes could follow in the coming weeks.

"We struck militarily an extremely sensitive site for Islamic State" said French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, describing it as a "strategic hub" for militants travelling between Iraq and Syria.

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It was France's first air strike in Syria as part of the US-led coalition fighting the extremist group there and in Iraq.

France was already bombing Islamic State targets in Iraq and had carried out 215 of the nearly 4,500 air strikes there.