Paris attacks: France intensifies air strikes on Isis in Syria
FT Reporters, Last updated: November 17, 2015 8:05 am
France launched a fresh set of air strikes on the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa in Syria early Tuesday morning as the country steps up its response to last week’s deadly attack in Paris.The bombings follow similar action on Sunday night, where 12 aircraft had taken part in raids on an Isis command centre. They came as an extensive ground operation in France and Belgium to attempt to catch those responsible continued.
Officials said the strikes on Tuesday morning destroyed a command post and a training camp.
France used special state of emergency powers to carry out a further 128 searches on Monday night and Tuesday morning, according to the interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve, speaking on France Info.
This follows the 168 that were carried out on Sunday night, which led to 23 arrests and
the seizure of 31 weapons, including Kalashnikov rifles and a rocket launcher.
John Kerry, the US secretary of state, will also meet President François Hollande on Tuesday morning in Paris where the two are expected to discuss strategy in Syria. The French raids were conducted with US support.
Mr Hollande on Monday called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, adding he would meet presidents Barack Obama of the US and Vladimir Putin of Russia soon in his bid to form a “big unified coalition” against Isis.
Meanwhile, Russia said that the Metrojet flight which crashed over Egypt on October 31 with the deaths of 224 people was brought down by a bomb.
“On the flight a self-made explosive device of up to 1.5kg TNT equivalent operated,” Alexander Bortnikov, head of the Federal Security Service or FSB told the country’s Security Council, adding that traces of explosive had been found in the wreckage.
Mr Putin vowed to find the perpetrators, adding that his country needed to intensify its own air strikes in Syria.
The international manhunt for the suspected “eighth man” in the Paris attacks was also under way Tuesday morning. Salah Abdeslam, a 26-year-old French national known to have re-entered Belgium on Saturday morning and named by police as involved in Friday’s attacks.
Monday’s anti-terror operation in Molenbeek, a rundown area of Brussels, failed to catch the suspect, who is believed to be still at large.
Mr Hollande on Monday demanded sweeping new powers for the French state to take on Isis in the wake of Friday’s chilling co-ordinated attacks on Paris as he pledged all-out war against the terrorist group.
Addressing a rare joint session of both houses of parliament, Mr Hollande called for the state of emergency to be extended to three months and for new authority to strip French citizenship from people involved in terrorism.
“These acts of war have been decided and planned in Syria,” he said. “They have been organised in Belgium and perpetrated on our soil with French accomplices.”
France would battle Isis “without a respite, without a truce . . . It is not a question of containing but of destroying this organisation”, he added, as the investigation continued into the massacre of least 129 people on Friday night.
Mr Hollande said France would seek agreement on a European plan for sharing airline passenger data and called for “co-ordinated and systemic checks’’ at the borders of Europe’s Schengen free movement area.
Mr Kerry on Monday described the attackers as ”psychopathic monsters”. He rejected the idea of that conflict against the Islamic State militants is a clash of civilisations.
“There’s nothing civilised about them,” he said.
Seven suspects died in the attacks — six set off their explosives and one was shot by the police.
Samy Amimour, who was named as one of the attackers at the Bataclan concert venue, violated travel restrictions placed on him in 2013 and had been subject to an international arrest warrant at the time, according to the prosecutor’s office.
A Syrian passport in the name of Ahmad Al Mohammad was found at the scene of the attack at the Stade de France near his body. But François Molins, the Paris public prosecutor, said the authenticity of the passport “had yet to be verified”.
The other attackers included Omar Ismael Mostefai, a 29-year-old French citizen of Algerian origin, who died after attacking the Bataclan, and Bilal Hadfi, 20, who is reported to have blown himself up at the Stade de France but whose identity has not yet formally been confirmed by the prosecutors.
French officials have also signalled they suspect the involvement in planning the attacks of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian linked to attempts this year on a high-speed train to Paris and a church in the city’s suburbs.
John Brennan, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, described the attacks as a “wake-up” call about the technical and legal restrictions that intelligence services face in collecting information.
He said on Monday that terrorist groups such as Isis had achieved a significant increase in “operational security” through the use of new technologies that can hide their identity and had “gone to school” on the methods that intelligence agencies use to track them.
Mr Brennan added that Isis had been plotting the Paris attacks for “a number of months” and was likely to be planning other such operations.
“I am sorry to say that this is something we are going to have to deal with for quite some time,” he said.
Response:
This article was very needed in several places. Not only did it nullify rumors about what France is going to do next, but it gave a peace to the people that their country is fighting the evil and they are being protected. This reassuring concept probably helps people to process the situation and respond accordingly. Considering the US is backing up France's actions, Its probably updating US citizens as well. France obviously seeks to disband and raze ISIS, as mentioned in the article. But recognizing that the attack was not all ISIS, and that others assisted, is crucial to arresting the correct people and taking appropriate actions. In my opinion, France is completely justified in increasing attacks on ISIS, and getting other countries like the US and Belgium to aid them. How France and others react now will determine the outcomes for actions in the future, so extra caution and thoughtfulness is needed by leaders and citizens alike. Therefore I see this article as being one that encourages, but warns readers on this issue at hand.
Citation:
"Paris Attacks: France Intensifies Air Strikes on Isis in Syria - FT.com." Pearson. The Financial Times Limited, 17 Nov. 2015. Web. 17 Nov. 2015. <http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/7d0ea3ea-8cf9-11e5-8be4-3506bf20cc2b.html#slide0>.
