Air strikes kill at least 33 Islamic State fighters: monitor

And what, in fact, was being hit?

As Russia forms a new alliance with France and Russian warplanes rain down bombs on Islamic State targets in Syria, the Paris attacks might be nudging Moscow and Washington closer together. They are said to be relocating in the city of Mosul, Iraq.

The French Defence Ministry said on Sunday that warplanes conducted a series of “massive” airstrikes on al-Raqqa, destroying a key IS command centre and a training camp. In Belgium, home to the suspected planner of the attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, authorities raised the national terror alert to “serious, probable” from “moderate, less probable” and canceled a Belgium-Spain soccer match planned for Tuesday in Brussels. It had yet to post information about the Russian airstrikes that took place Tuesday, lacking more recent updates.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the militants were mostly killed when checkpoints were attacked by French and other planes.

And even under the current rules of engagement, Syrians have reported numerous instances of civilian casualties from American airstrikes, including one in May in the town of Bir Mahli that killed at least 60 people. Raqqa residents could not be reached because of an IS ban on private Internet access across the city.

“Given the tragic attacks in Paris and the threats we have already seen, Texas cannot participate in any program that will result in Syrian refugees – any one of whom could be connected to terrorism – being resettled in Texas”, Governor Greg Abbott of the large southern state wrote Monday in a letter to Obama. But the US rules of engagement greatly restrict combat missions, say former military officials, because ISIS immerses its members in civilian populations making them virtual safe havens for terrorist operations.

And Putin, who has rarely missed a chance to mock the USA, avoided outright gloating as he spoke to reporters at the meeting in Turkey. Outside of anecdotal accounts, damage assessment in Raqqa is inherently hard. “Daesh will never show its weakness or that it is being harmed by the airstrikes”, he said, using the group’s Arabic acronym. But he added: “They don’t have too much impact on ISIS’ military situation”.

Under the October 20 accord, Russian Federation and the United States agreed to set up special radio frequencies over which their pilots could communicate with one another and to maintain a phone hotline between their military leaders to forestall a mid-air collision or other risky situations.

It also comes a day after President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron urged Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit to focus air strikes on Islamic State targets in Syria.

“The vile plans of the Islamic State must be stopped”, Lavrov said at the embassy. Also complicating the worldwide effort is the disagreement between Russian Federation and the United States over whom and what to target. State Department spokesman John Kirby said that so far, there is still no official coordination between the USA and Russian Federation. In Syria, Assad’s troops backed by Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah militants and Russian airstrikes broke a two-year siege on the Kweiris military base in Aleppo province imposed by Islamic State militants. At least 126 Islamic State militants were killed in the Kurdish offensive, according to the Iraqi Kurdish news agency Rudaw.

“They are coming under increasing economic pressure, and passing this down on the population”, Strack said. If ground troops go in to unseat the Islamic State, what can we expect next?

“The coalition should take such strategies by the radical group into consideration”.