France to intensify air strikes against IS

France to intensify air strikes against IS

France to intensify air strikes against IS

FRANCE President, Francois Hollande, has said
his country will intensify air strikes against
Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria and Iraq.
Speaking in Paris after talks with United
Kingdom’s (UK) Prime Minister, David Cameron,
Mr. Hollande confirmed French aircraft carrier
Charles de Gaulle would join the military action.
It comes as the Belgian capital, Brussels,
remains on the highest level of terror alert for a
third day.
Suspected Paris attacks gunman, Salah
Abdeslam, remains at large.
The two leaders agreed to step up co-operation
on countering international terrorism, including
increased data-sharing and sharing of airline
records.
The Islamic State group has said it was
responsible for the Paris attacks, in which 130
people were killed.
“I firmly support the decisive action taken by
President Hollande to strike ISIL (IS) in Syria, it
is my firm belief that we should do so too,” Mr.
Cameron said in a statement at a news
conference.
Mr. Hollande said: “We will intensify our strikes,
choosing targets that will do the most damage
possible to this army of terrorists.”
In Brussels, the federal prosecutor’s spokesman
said five people had been arrested following a
police operation on Sunday night in the Brussels
region and in the Liege region.
These arrests bring to 21 the number of people
arrested as part of Belgium’s ongoing terror
alert.
Earlier, Mr. Hollande and Mr. Cameron visited the
Bataclan Concert Hall, where at least 89 people
were killed.
Mr. Hollande will be meeting the U.S. and
Russian presidents later this week.
Mr. Cameron said he had offered the French air
force the use of the RAF Akrotiri base on Cyprus
to mount strikes on IS as well as RAF air-to-air
refuelling support.
In the Brussels region, universities, schools, large
stores, shopping centres and the metro system
stayed closed yesterday, following renewed
warnings of possible attacks. Soldiers are
patrolling the streets of the capital.
Belgian Prime Minister, Charles Michel, said that
everything was being done to return the city to
normal as quickly as possible – but the
authorities feared a repeat of the events in Paris.