Led coalition against ISIL conducts 23 airstrikes in Syria, Iraq

The war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) will be “long, hard and global”, French ambassador Francois Richier said on Monday in New Delhi, indicating the challenges involved in defeating the group responsible for the killings of at least 127 people in the recent terror attacks in Paris.

The Cumhuriyet report also said that the United States authorities, having known about Turkey’s objection to empowering YPG militias, asked Turkey to send its special forces to the Al Salama-Carablus border crossing in northern Syria.

Obama says that he is confident in his plan, but admits: “We are very clear eyed about the very, very hard road ahead”.

The Pentagon has confirmed that just one in four of all US aerial missions actually dropped bombs or fired missiles.

“With fixed-site targets, if there are any civilians in the area, permission is usually denied, despite the fact that America has the best proven ability in the world to hit targets near civilian areas without hurting civilians”. The carrier will add 20 warplanes to the effort.

France will have 36 fighter jets in the region once the Charles de Gaulle reaches the zone which should be Thursday.

The attacks across Paris on Friday night, which killed 129 people at a concert, restaurants and a soccer stadium on Friday, underlined the threat posed by ISIL far beyond its strongholds in Syria and Iraq. Previously the French had conducted only a handful of strikes in Syria, focusing most of its strikes in Iraq as part of the U.S.-led coalition.

A few media, mainstream and otherwise, wage a laudable attempt to address these concerns in a more superficial way than in a systematically committed manner, which belies its own well-organized and dictated nature as well; for example, France Presse quotes intelligence observers that “ISIL has shown enjoying of a complex network of mercenaries beyond its native lands now ruling in the Middle East during its recent Paris attacks, networks which are well-organized and equipped to prepare strong terrorist onslaught in mainland Europe”.

USA officials were quoted by the Reuters as saying Russian Federation launched a “significant number” of strikes in Syria using both sea-launched cruise missiles and long-range bombers.

Officials reported details of the latest strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports.