Hollande, Obama Discuss Islamic State in White House Meeting

The findings support the claims of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

“Russia’s the outlier”, he added, noting that strikes against moderate opposition fighters “bolster the Assad regime”.

But Obama has been skeptical that the USA could align seamlessly with Russian Federation, given Moscow’s support for Assad. The incident also shows a need to move forward quickly on a diplomatic resolution to the conflict in Syria, he said.

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush is urging President Barack Obama to step up his efforts and “unleash the military” to defeat ISIS. “We do not want to exclude anyone”, he said.

“There has never been a time where we said we don’t want countries that may have differences with us to avoid working against ISIL”, Obama said.

But the French president says Europe must secure its borders.

Instead he said – as he has before – that he would intensify the efforts already in place, including increased intelligence sharing and bombing.

France has stepped up its airstrikes following the Paris attacks, relying in part on US intelligence to hit targets in Raqqa, the Islamic State group’s stronghold in Syria.

Relations between the two allies over Syrian policy have been strained since August 2013 when U.S. President Barack Obama cancelled a plan to strike Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces over the use of chemical weapons.

Elsewhere, three Russian TV journalists were wounded on the Turkish-Syrian border when an anti-tank shell or missile landed near their auto. “It can not be tolerated, it must be destroyed, and we must do it together”.

Beyond their discussions on military cooperation, Obama and Hollande were expected to discuss diplomatic efforts to achieve a political transition in Syria. Efforts to train and equip moderate rebel groups in Syria have struggled, and Obama has authorized the deployment of 50 special operations forces to jumpstart the program.

Milbank noted Obama’s repeated warning that everything involving terrorism and Syria “is going to be hard”. “Like President Hollande, our view from the start has been that Russian Federation is welcome to be part of this broad-based coalition that we have set up”, Obama said.

Meanwhile, police in France said they were analysing what is thought to be a suicide belt similar to those used in the Paris attacks, found without its detonator in a dustbin in the Montrouge suburb of the capital.

The French leader had come to Washington determined to persuade his American colleague to ramp up the war on Islamic terrorists, but his initial resolve all but evaporated the moment he entered the White House. The two planned to take questions at a news conference following their meeting. Since the attacks, Americans have recalled their own visits to Paris, visiting the Eiffel Tower or walking along the Seine.

Both sides of Australian politics are calling for calm after the shooting down of a Russian warplane by Turkey on the Syrian border.

In the 12 days since ISIS militants unleashed terror on Paris, killing 129 people and injuring scores of others, worldwide attention has turned to how European nations and the USA can best destroy the terrorist group. But he’s likely to leave Washington without firm backing for his call to bring Russian Federation into a new coalition to fight the extremists.