Germany Makes Noncommittal Commitment In War On ISIS

Following Paris’ call to broaden the coalition to combat the Islamic State, whose insurgents are exporting terrorism to Europe, German parliament on Friday approved Berlin’s plan to join the military operation in Syria, Xinhua reported. “We do not want to be dragged into a war at the speed of a Tornado”, the Left party’s Petra Sitte told parliament. The frigate is already en route to join French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, which Hollande visited Friday in the eastern Mediterranean.

France, the United Kingdom, the United States and other partners are bombing the Islamic State, also known as ISIL.

The Bundestag mandate for the mission begins immediately and lasts for 12 months, although Tornado reconnaissance flights will not begin until January 2016.

The deployment outlined earlier this week by German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen will involve six “Tornado” reconnaissance planes, a refueling aircraft, a frigate to help guard the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, as well as logistics and command personnel and satellite links.

In Washington, President Barack Obama agreed to send special-forces troops into Syria. “The side that will win…is the party that will have the Syrian people on its side”.

Britain joined the US-led bombing campaign over Syria on Thursday. The plan also authorized the deployment of 1,200 support troops to be placed around the region.

Several opposition parties were critical of the plan, such as it is, noting there was no United Nations authorization, no stated goal, and no apparent end-game to the conflict.

“I’m working on the basis that this fight, if it is taken seriously, will go on for well over 10 years”, the association’s chairman Andre Wuestner told German TV this week.

“We must avoid the collapse of the state of Syria”, she said, to avoid a repeat of mistakes made in Iraq, when groups who had been loyal to Saddam Hussein were prevented from being part of the political system after his defeat. “It’s not planned, and nobody in the German government is planning it”.

Hollande arrived on December 4 on the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier to meet air crews launching strikes on ISIL militants in Syria and Iraq, an Agence France-Presse journalistsaid. It carries 2,000 people on board.

The men, carrying bogus IDs in the names of Samir Bouzid and Soufiane Kayal, were traveling in a Mercedes with another Paris attacks fugitive, Salah Abdeslam, when the auto was checked September 9 at the Hungarian-Austrian border, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.