France Pushes UN Members to Back Fight Against Islamic State

The hunt for the mastermind of last week’s attacks in Paris is continuing.

“If in fact he shifts his focus and the focus of his military to what is the principal threat – and that is ISIL (Islamic State) – that is something that we very much want to see”, Obama said on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Manila.

The Paris prosecutor’s office says the eight people detained Wednesday in a police raid that killed the suspected mastermind of the Paris attacks will stay in custody for at least another day.

Russian Federation put its new draft forwards on Wednesday, about two months after a previous version was rejected by the United States, Britain and France over a provision that called for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s particpation in efforts to defeat “Islamic State” (IS) extremists.

The text “unequivocally condemns in the strongest terms the horrifying terrorist attacks” by the Islamic State group in Paris and Beirut, and also mentions violence in Tunisia, Turkey and Egypt this year.

After the separate French resolution was circulated, Churkin, the Russian United Nations envoy, recalled that after the 11 September 2001 attacks there was a first resolution adopted quickly, followed by a broader one, and said “it may well be that we will go down that road again” – referring to the possibility that Russia’s wording on Syria might be somehow accommodated later.

That measure is expected to be presented to the council soon and Delattre said he would “carefully stud” the Russian draft text to see how parts of it could be added to the French draft resolution.

British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon confirmed that one of the Royal Navy’s most advanced warships, the HMS Defender, will provide air defence cover for the Charles de Gaulle as it deploys to the Gulf.

The U.S. military is “not coordinating with the Russians, we’re not conducting any operations with the Russians nor are we planning to do any of those things”, Army Colonel Steve Warren, a spokesman for the US-led coalition, told reporters yesterday. Another said it would be a deal-breaker if the United States tries to make al-Assad’s ouster a precondition for an agreement on concerted action in Syria.

Lavrov said he had detected a change in the West’s position since the Paris attacks and the bombing of a Russian passenger plane.