Hollande says US, France to step up strikes in Syria, Iraq

Barack Obama and Francois Hollande have repeated their call for a renewed global effort to degrade and destroy Islamic State militants. As part of his efforts, the French president has met US President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron in the past week.

Obama also said that any political transition would be a “long, methodical process” that both the usa and France are committed to. “We don’t want to exclude anyone”. “The challenge has been Russia’s focus on propping up Assad [over] fighting ISIL”.

As a result of the attack, which cost the Russian military 2 lives, Moscow announced that it will deploy its sophisticated S-400 missile defense systems to Syria.

Obama and Hollande were both asked if they could set a deadline for Assad’s exit.

Obama urged Russian Federation and Turkey to communicate about the details of the operation in order to decrease the chance of escalation, a message the White House said Obama relayed in a later phone conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Republicans and even some fellow Democrats have criticised Mr Obama’s tactics of attempting to defeat Isis by striking the group in Iraq and Syria from the air, leading an worldwide coalition, while relying on local and regional troops to fight the militants on the ground.

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.

Obama said, “We are here today to declare that the United States and France stand united in total solidarity to deliver justice to these terrorists and those who sent them and to defend our nations”.

Obama called Islamic State a “barbaric terrorist group”, adding that “its murderous ideology poses a serious threat to all of us”.

“We can not, and we will not succumb to fear”.

Still, as the friendly nations presented a united front, it was clear the world’s eye is on Russian Federation.

From Washington, Hollande will travel to Moscow for meetings with Putin.

“We are taking every possible step to keep our homeland safe”, Obama said following a meeting with his national security advisers.

The shoot-down was the first incident of its kind since Russian Federation launched air strikes in Syria in September in support of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

“If we can make him move on one of those things all the better”, the official said.

But any cooperation seems far off, Benitez says.

Calling ISIS a “scourge” that “must be defeated”, Obama said the US stood with France after the brutal massacre in Paris.

“Perhaps the most ludicrous comment I’ve ever heard, that climate change is a bigger threat to our country than radical Islamic terrorism”, Bush said.