In the sensitive waters of the Syrian Canal, a frigate flying the French flag has been almost part of the landscape for many months. But’Aconite and its 170 crew members are far from being conquered in this easternmost part of the Mediterranean Sea, a narrow 180-kilometer corridor along the Cypriot coasts on the one hand, and the Syrian and Lebanese coasts on the other. and Israeli.
In this area, theAconite – on which the French Navy has authorized the embarkation of several media including The world, at the end of September – is in fact at the forefront of two phenomena which have been progressing in parallel since 2015 in a worrying way, in the eyes of the military: the war in Syria on the one hand, and the assertion of Russia on the other. All in the midst of the comings and goings of not always very accommodating Turkish ships, and the increasingly visible presence of Iranian ships.
“We are not worried, we are vigilant”, summarizes the commander of this light stealth frigate, Nicolas du Chéné. On paper, theAconite has a main mission: to contribute, from the sea, to operation “Chammal”, the French component of the intervention in the Iraqi-Syrian zone led by the United States and a coalition of seventy countries against the Islamic State organization (IS). An intelligence mission carried out using radar and electromagnetic sensors available to the frigate, as well as through its helicopter which flies once or twice a day.
These technical means allow theAconite to keep an eye on the take-offs and landings of fighter planes, in particular from the Syrian city of Latakia or on the movements of ships, civilian or military, entering and leaving Syrian ports. Clearly, to watch over all military support or any supplies from the Bashar-Al-Assad regime (fuel, weapons, etc.).
The increasingly contested freedom of navigation
This intelligence mission ofAconite is coupled with another, called “sovereignty”. In other words, the ambition to navigate relentlessly in this small perimeter, even if it means making circles in the water, in order to defend a value that has become more and more contested and dear to France and its allies: freedom navigation. In this narrow channel of Syria, a certain number of specialists fear, in fact, the development of a new disputed zone with limited access, supported by Russia.
Day and night, to the rhythm of the crew’s shifts and the jamming of the GPS, theAconite thus has its eyes riveted on a point that has become a nerve center: the port of Tartous. Russia does not have direct access to the Mediterranean, but, since 2013, it has been operating more and more from this Syrian port where a concession was even negotiated in 2019, giving full access to its warships. A geostrategic shift that has gone relatively unnoticed by the general public, but which the French navy documents the rise in power day by day.
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