An IS-linked news agency has reported no casualties from the air strikes.
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Russian forces have executed a number of military air strikes in Syria since last week. “It must be strengthened in such a way so that the terrorists will understand that retribution is inevitable”. Abdullah, a Syrian concierge in Beirut who reached his sister in Raqqa on Tuesday, said that in the case of the seven French airstrikes on Monday, “all these strikes are targeting abandoned empty locations”.
With Russian warplanes flying the same skies over Raqqa as USA aircraft, Moscow also provided Washington with advance notice of the recent bombing operation against Islamic State, Cook said, as required under an aviation-safety agreement signed last month by the two countries.
Planes from the Russian base in Syria have bombed a few 150 targets across the war-torn country.
Putting US troops on the ground in Syria to counter the Islamic State and take on Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime would be a mistake, Sen.
But other European Union partners have spoken mainly of non-combat military assistance in Iraq, and a willingness to send more peacekeepers to Mali, which would free up French forces who intervened against Islamist fighters there in 2013.
“Not for the first time, Russian Federation is confronted with barbaric terrorist crimes”, Mr Putin said during a meeting with meeting with defence and security chiefs. French police staged 128 raids overnight in the hunt for accomplices and Islamist militant networks, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said, adding that the investigation was making fast progress.
The focus of the investigation was Salah Abdeslam, whose sibling Brahim blew himself up outside a bar in Paris, seriously injuring one person. State Department spokesman John Kirby said that so far, there is still no official coordination between the US and Russian Federation. That process is complicated by a US demand that Assad steps down as president.
One of the targets Friday was outside a Paris stadium where France was playing Germany in a friendly match. Defense officials said the United States had stepped up intelligence sharing, enabling Paris to identify more specific targets.
Hollande has declared a state of emergency allowing administrative arrests and searches without a warrant following the bloodiest attacks in French history.
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation said it was providing support to France but had not triggered article five.
As France geared up for a long war, the British prime minister said he would present a “comprehensive strategy” for tackling Islamic State to parliament.
Britain and Denmark have suggested they could follow Paris in extending their air strikes from Iraq to Syria. For many, the threat of missiles and bombs from the enemies of Islamic State is more of an immediate threat than the vicious oppression of the jihadis’ themselves.
“Raqqa, if you like, is the head of the snake”. More recently, the militants placed tires filled with fuel on empty barrels around the city, with plans to ignite them in case of an attack to cloud the skies with smoke.
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Islamic State militants are stiffening their defenses for a possible assault on their de facto capital Raqqa as global airstrikes intensify on the Syrian city in retaliation for the Paris attacks.
