Obama and Hollande Talk ISIS As Well As Russia

Hollande’s trip to Washington was part of a diplomatic push to get the USA and other nations to bolster efforts to destroy the militant group that has claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks. “Turkey, like every country, has a right to defend its territory and airspace”, Obama said. The incident underscored the complex military landscape in Syria, where a sprawling cast of countries and rebel groups are engaged on the battlefield and in the skies overhead, sometimes with minimal coordination. At the same time, conflicting accounts and rising tensions stood to make any closer contact between interests more hard.

But amid the increased vigilance, the president warned that Americans shouldn’t give in to fear or allow fear to divide the country.

Nearly 15 years after the famous “We are all Americans” proclaimed in Paris in support of the United States bruised after September 11, 2001, Barack Obama launched in the language of Molière “Nous sommes tous Français” (We are all French), in solidarity towards the ally hit by terrorism.

“This was an attack on our free and open societies where people come together to celebrate, sing and compete”, Mr. Obama said.

“It would also help civilians under attack by the Syrian government”.

Half of the public now favor sending US ground troops to fight ISIS in Iraq and Syria, up 4 percentage points from August. “We do not want to exclude anyone”. “We need a joint response, an implacable joint response”. Militarily, it is about destroying Daesh no matter where they are. “It is about taking out their financing, hunting down their leaders, dismantling their networks and taking back the land they now control”, the French president said. “That would be extremely damaging”, Hollande said.

Hollande says the two countries will strengthen their intelligence-sharing regarding targets.

“Today, President Hollande and I agree that our nations must do even more together”, Obama said. Mr. Hollande called for Russian Federation and Turkey to take measures to avoid escalation of the conflict.

On Monday, Mr Hollande met British Prime Minister David Cameron – who has pledged to press the British Parliament to approve military action in Syria – and on Thursday will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

The aerial assault, which took place around 1830 GMT, was conducted jointly with the US Air Force and last about five hours, the French defense ministry said in a statement.

Shortly after their meeting, a French official in Washington said French warplanes had struck an Islamic State command center located west of the Iraqi city of Mosul.

Both Russia and Turkey are already engaged in air campaigns in Syria, though to different ends; and both would be vital to any effort at creating a more robust coalition against IS. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Leon Panetta, Obama’s former defence secretary, said the US effort wasn’t measuring up. What the Presidents won’t do is intervene with more military forces.

In late October, the White House said it planned to drop a few dozen commandos into war-torn Syria to aid in the fight against the Islamic State, but experts then questioned if it was too little, too late. “Those who believe that we could wait some more and that, in any case, it was far away, we now realise that we have an influx of refugees that the terrorists, the risk is everywhere due to Daesh”.