RAF Typhoons Join French Jets to Obliterate IS Arms Bunker in Eastern Syria

The Night the Desert Shook

Just after midnight, when the Syrian desert is at its coldest and darkest, two Royal Air Force Typhoons crept above the black horizon. Below them, a fortified bunker near al-Bukamal pulsed with life: Islamic State commanders were stockpiling Russian-made anti-tank missiles, suicide-belt explosives and thousands of rifle rounds.

Within minutes, the night turned white-hot.

“We watched the first Paveway IV punch through the roof like a nail through plywood,” a French Mirage pilot told colleagues on the secure chat. “The second detonation lifted a fireball you could see from 30 miles away.”

Why This Bunker Mattered

Intelligence officers had tracked the depot for months. Satellite images showed a steady convoy of flat-bed trucks arriving under cover of darkness; intercepted radio chatter referred to it as “the Pantry” because it fed every major IS cell between Deir ez-Zor and the Iraqi border.

• More than 1,200 kg of high-grade explosives stored inside
• At least 70 modified drones intended for “swarm” attacks on coalition bases
• A cache of French-made MILAN missiles looted from Iraqi army depots in 2014

The Franco-British Punch

The mission was stitched together in less than 72 hours. Britain’s 903 Expeditionary Air Wing on Cyprus supplied the Typhoons; France’s 5e Escadre de Chasse flew Mirage 2000D strike aircraft from Jordan. Coordinators at the U.S.-run al-Tanf garrison uploaded fresh GPS coordinates when drone footage showed IS fighters trying to move the munitions.

At 00:34 local time, the first RAF Typhoon released a 500-lb Paveway IV laser-guided bomb. The weapon sliced through three reinforced concrete slabs before exploding deep inside the bunker. A French Mirage followed 30 seconds later, dropping a GBU-12 to collapse the entrance and entomb whatever—and whoever—remained inside.

Aftermath: What We Know

Initial battle-damage assessment shows the depot “no longer exists,” according to a senior UK defence source. Coalition drones continued to orbit for six hours; no secondary explosions were seen, suggesting the entire ammunition stock was consumed in the blasts. Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitor, reported at least 15 IS fatalities, including two senior weapons facilitators.

The strike is a morale boost for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, who have complained for months that IS remnants were re-arming along the Euphrates corridor. “Every bullet we don’t have to face keeps one of our fighters alive,” an SDF commander told Storyteller by voice message on Thursday.

Downing Street stressed the action was “purely defensive” and aimed at degrading IS capacity to export terror beyond Syria. France’s defence minister, Sébastien Lecornu, called it “a textbook example of European interoperability under NATO’s umbrella.”

Neither country notified the Assad regime in advance; both relied on the self-defence clause of UN Resolution 2249, which authorises member states to “eradicate safe havens” exploited by Islamic State.