France has deployed special forces in northern Syria to advise the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighting the ISIS group, a defence ministry official said Thursday, reports Al Arabiya.
"The offensive at Manbij is clearly being backed by a certain number of states including France. It's the usual support - it's advisory," the official told AFP, without giving further details on the deployment.
France until now has only acknowledged the presence in the region of around 150 members of its special forces, deployed in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The SDF, a US-backed Kurdish and Arab alliance, are on the northern edge of Manbij, a strategic town held by ISIS that serves as a waypoint between the Turkish border and the militant stronghold of Raqqa.
The French special forces will not intervene militarily themselves and are not supposed to engage in combat with ISIS militants, the defence ministry official said.
Tabqa, another ISIS-held transit town which lies near Syria's largest dam, is also under attack.
France has 2,500 men in its special forces, of whom around 400 are currently deployed in 17 countries, mainly in the Sahel, the military said.
French defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian had indicated last Friday, in remarks to a small state TV channel covering French politics, that French troops were helping operations at Manbij.
"We are providing support through weapons supplies, air presence and advice," he told the Public Senate channel.
In Iraqi Kurdistan, French special forces are already deployed, accompanying Kurdish peshmerga fighters to the front line near the city of Mosul.
The French help the peshmerga to locate and neutralize improvised explosive devices (IED) and to handle 20-millimetre guns supplied by France.
The IEDs, often buried in the ground and hard to spot, are the scourge of forces fighting ISIS.
Hundreds of French nationals have gone to Syria to fight alongside ISIS fighters, but the special forces "are not there just because there are French nationals there", the defense ministry official said.
France was targeted by militants in 2015, with shootings at the offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in January and then a series of attacks in the French capital in November. A total of 147 people were killed and hundreds were injured.