US, France agree to scale up fight against Islamic State

U.S. President Barack Obama and his French counterpart Francois Hollande pledged Tuesday to stand “united” on counterterrorism and increase efforts to “jointly” destroy the Islamic State (IS), also known as ISIL.

President Barack Obama sought Tuesday to both defend a longtime North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally and keep the Syrian war from spiraling into an even deeper conflict after neighboring Turkey shot down a Russian warplane that it said violated its airspace.

French President Hollande came to Washington before going onto Moscow to push for a united response against ISIS for the attacks in Paris, but as our chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell explains, his mission did not go as planned.

President Obama believes that if Russian Federation joins the fight against the Islamic state it would be “enormously helpful” for the U.S. and France.

Turkey’s attack on the plane comes as Putin is in the midst of a diplomatic campaign to cozy up to USA allies, especially France, in an apparent bid to create a so-called “grand coalition”. He’ll meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel Wednesday. US forces were not involved in the incident, according to an American defense official, who was not authorized to discuss the incident publicly and so spoke on condition of anonymity.

But he stuck to his earlier line that Russia’s devastating air campaign was targeted at “moderate” opposition groups and not Isis – in apparent support for Turkish claims – and meant to bolster President Bashar al-Assad’s government. ISIL is another acronym for ISIS.

“We will never tolerate such crimes like the one committed today”, he declared.

Combating terrorism “There are likely to be adjustments on the margin of how the administration is dealing with the Islamic State, but I don’t expect that there will be a wholesale change in strategy”, said William Wechsler, who was deputy assistant secretary of defence for special operations in combating terrorism at the Pentagon until January 2015.

Putin and Cameron both emphasized the need for joint action against terrorism in the wake of Paris terror attack. The terrorist attacks in Paris affected the nation as a whole.

Last week, Hollande called for the USA and Russian Federation to set aside their policy divisions over Syria and “fight this terrorist army in a broad, single coalition”.

Others, including many Democrats, fear it could be the beginning of a slide toward a much larger engagement, though to date Obama has largely stuck to getting other countries to offer more assistance as part of the 65-country coalition fighting ISIS.

In France’s fight against terrorists, “we stand by our friends in good times and bad, no matter what”, Mr Obama said. They want Moscow to stop supporting Syria’s President.

“So as Americans travel this weekend to be with their loved ones, I want them to know that our counterterrorism, intelligence, homeland security, and law enforcement professionals at every level are working overtime”.

“Only a fraction of their attacks have been against ISIL targets”.