President Barack Obama has announced ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday that there is no “specific or credible” threat of a terrorist attack in the US.
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“Compassion, solidarity, we might take note of it, but we must act”, Hollande said of the worldwide response following the Paris attacks.
Responding to a question, Obama said he does not have all the information yet.
So far, Obama is resisting calls to either change or significantly ramp up his approach, and instead is focused on getting other countries to offer more counterintelligence, humanitarian and military assistance.
Obama said it has been noted that the terrorists did not direct their attacks against the French government or military; rather, they focused their violence on the very spirit of France and, by extension, on all liberal democracies. “I hope that translates into action and it’s not just language”, said Philippe Le Corre, a former senior adviser to the French Defense Ministry who is now a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “So we are concerned when the Russians don’t do what they say they’re going to do, right”.
The comments reflected the resentment in the White House at pressure to escalate the battle with the Islamic State, given that the United States has conducted two-thirds of the airstrikes against the group in Iraq and 95 percent of the strikes in Syria.
President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande participate in a news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, November 24, 2015.
Washington and Paris have stepped up their fight against IS, with France launching its first strikes from a newly deployed aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean and the United States calling for more global cooperation against the group.
Previously, Donald Trump, the GOP presidential front runner, said he would expand the US bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria. Cook said the USA “is still gathering details” and has not determined whether Russian Federation violated Turkey’s airspace.
Police in France said they were analyzing what is thought to be a suicide belt similar to those used in the Paris attacks, found without its detonator in a dustbin outside the capital.
“The United States is certainly pulling more than our own weight”, Earnest said in a statement.
After the Paris attacks, Obama said, “our hearts broke too”.
Both Obama and Hollande have encouraged Russian Federation to work with them in defeating the Islamic State while also maintaining control and preventing escalation.
On Morning Edition, NPR’s Scott Horsley explained that Hollande is trying to bridge a tough divide: the United States and Russian Federation have a fundamentally different view of the civil war in Syria.
Hollande said the two leaders agreed on the importance of closing the Turkish border to limit the movement of extremists into Europe.
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“While Russian Federation sees Syrian President Bashar Assad as a bulwark against terrorism, Obama sees the Syrian president as a recruiting tool for the group”.
