Merkel Signals More Support for France

Germany plans to send Tornado reconnaissance jets to support the fight against the ISIS in Syria, the defence spokesman of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives said today.

“If the President of France asks me to consider how we can do more, then it’s up to us to think about it”, Merkel told journalists after meeting with Francois Hollande.

“The strongest response to terrorists is to carry on living our lives and our values as we have until now – self-confident and free, considerate and engaged”, Merkel said in addressing the Bundestag, the lower house of the country’s parliament.

Germany is also promising to send 650 soldiers to Mali to provide some relief to French forces fighting jihadists there.

In a statement, Hollande’s office said the announcement from Berlin on Thursday was a “very major contribution, showing Germany’s will to play a frontline role in the fight against the mutual curse” of Islamic State.

The Islamic militants have claimed responsibility for the November 13 attacks in Paris which killed 130 people and wounded hundreds more.

On the investigative front, France and Belgium continued a manhunt for two fugitive suspects believed to be directly linked to the Paris attacks.

Hollande will now head to Moscow on Thursday to press his case for an anti-IS alliance to President Vladimir Putin, after receiving few firm commitments from President Barack Obama in Washington.

“We can’t accept more refugees in Europe (beyond what has been agreed)”, Manuel Valls said.

The two leaders also addressed the relations between Russia and Turkey, which have worsened since the downing of a Russian Su-24 warplane by Turkish fighter jets near the Turkish-Syrian border on Tuesday.

Germany has not taken part in airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, which have been mainly flown by USA and French aircraft.

Closer US-Russian co-operation would require a “strategic shift”, Mr Obama said, urging Russia to stop bombing other rebel groups opposed to Moscow’s ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“It was not France that said ‘Come!”, the French prime minister said in an apparent reference to Germany’s decision to open its borders to refugees last September.

As police armed with automatic weapons stood guard, schools and some subway stations in the Belgian capital reopened Wednesday for the first time since emergency measures were imposed four days ago in the wake of the Paris attacks.

The latest on the attacks in Paris and security alert in Brussels.

As France prepared for a national day of mourning for its dead on Friday, Obama sought to reassure Americans traveling home for Thanksgiving that they face no credible and immediate terror threat and that his government was “taking every possible step to keep our homeland safe”.