French fighter bombers pound IS stronghold in Syria: ministry

French President Francois Hollande said on Monday France was at war against cowards, and not in a clash of civilisations, after militant attacks killed at least 129 people in and around Paris last week.

France has staged dozens of raids on suspected extremists and bombed the Islamic State group in Syria as the prime minister steeled the nation for more bloodshed after its deadliest ever terror attacks.

Syria has become the biggest center from where terrorism is spreading, and the global community has repeatedly had chances to make sure of that, the French president said.

“We know that more attacks are being prepared, not just against France but also against other European countries”, Valls said on RTL radio, Reuters reported.

Across France and throughout Europe, people paused for a minute’s silence at noon French time (6pm Thailand time) in memory of the victims.

Yesterday French jets pounded IS targets in the group’s Syrian stronghold of Raqa, its first military response to the Paris carnage. “They were organized in Belgium and committed on our land”.

Metro trains were packed with commuters, pupils returned to schools and museums opened, although a national state of emergency remained in place.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying they were in retaliation for French airstrikes in Iraq and Syria over the past year. A French official said police had identified the suspected mastermind as Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian national believed to be operating in Syria. Even though Abdeslam was already listed among the suspects, the information was not available to border police when officers briefly detained him.

He also proposed measures to speed up the expulsion of foreigners considered a threat to public order, strip bi-national citizens who carry out acts hostile to national security of French citizenship, and bar bi-nationals considered a terrorism risk from entering French territory.

In February of this year, Islamic State’s online magazine Dabiq carried an interview with an Islamist bearing that name and boasting of having traveled through Europe unnoticed by security forces to organize attacks and procure weapons.

Prosecutors on Monday morning said the remains of a suicide bomber found at the Stade de France, north of the French capital, matched the fingerprints of a person registered by Greek authorities as an asylum seeker in October.

Twelve French aircraft dropped 20 bombs on two ISIS targets in Raqqa in what one defense official told the Associated Press was a “massive” strike.