17/11/2015

Paris attacks: France retaliates

France drops 20 bombs on Islamic State jihadi training camp in revenge for Paris shootings
The warplanes are seen launching from an airbase in the United Arab Emirates in the above video

France retaliated to the Paris terror attack by launching deadly airstrikes on an Islamic State jihadi training camp in Syria tonight.

Yesterday president Francois Hollande vowed to crush the extremist group who massacred 129 people on Friday night.

Less than 24 hours later, some 10 fighter jets pummeled the ISIS-held city of Raqqa with at least 20 bombs, according to the French defence ministry.

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France Strikes ISIS Targets in Syria in Retaliation for Attacks
Grief in Paris

France bombed the Syrian city of Raqqa on Sunday night, its most aggressive strike against the Islamic State group it blames for killing 129 people in a string of terrorist attacks across Paris only two days before.

President François Hollande, who vowed to be “unforgiving with the barbarians” of the Islamic State after the carnage in Paris, decided on the airstrikes in a meeting with his national security team on Saturday, officials said.

While France has been conducting scores of airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq, it had been bombing inside Syria only sparingly, wary of inadvertently strengthening the hand of President Bashar al-Assad by killing his enemies

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French fighter jets launch ISIS bombing raids as revenge for Paris shootings
The video states that at 7.50pm and 8.25pm French time 10 jets destroyed a command centre and jihadi training camp in ISIS stronghold Raqqa

Footage shows the dramatic moment France scrambled 10 jets to bomb Islamic State targets as bloody revenge for the Paris terror attacks

It stated the raid was part of Operation Chammal - the French military operation targeting ISIS.

The jets, launched from an airbase in the United Arab Emirates, hit a command and control center, a jihadi recruitment center, a munitions depot and a training camp.

related: Chilling moment France President Francois Hollande is told about suicide blasts and shootings

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France, Russia strike Islamic State; new suspect sought
A French fighter jet is seen on the runway at an undisclosed location, in this picture released by the ECPAD November 17, 2015

France and Russia bombed Islamic State targets in Syria on Tuesday, punishing the group for attacks in Paris and against a Russian airliner that together killed 353 people, and made the first tentative steps toward a possible military alliance.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a coordinated onslaught in Paris on Friday and the downing of the Russian jet over Sinai on Oct. 31, saying they were in retaliation for French and Russian air raids in Iraq and Syria.

Still reeling from the Paris carnage that killed 129 people, France made an unprecedented appeal for European Union support and investigators said they were making progress in unraveling the plot, which was hatched in Syria and nurtured in Belgium.

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Russia and France wreak revenge on ISIS: Putin orders his warships in Med to work with French Navy as jihadists in Syria are pummelled from the air 
Vladimir Putin has ordered his warships to co-operate with the French military as both countries launched revenge attacks on ISIS targets in Syria

Russia has hit the ISIS 'capital' Raqqa with cruise missiles - just hours after saying the passenger jet brought down in Egypt had been bombed. The strikes come after it was revealed French jets had pounded targets in the terrorists' Syrian stronghold, including a command centre and a recruitment base for jihadists.

Now the Russian President wants his missile cruiser Moskva, which is in the Mediterranean Sea, to work with France's military, who are carrying out more airstrikes over Syria tonight after ISIS claimed responsibility for the Paris terror attacks which killed 129 people and injured 352.

The Egyptian plane crash and the weekend wave of terrorist attacks in Paris have raised Russia's determination to fight ISIS, although concern remains in the West that its Syria airstrikes are also targeting rebels who are opposed to Syrian President Bashar Assad but not affiliated with radical groups. Putin said a French aircraft carrier task force is to approach the Moskva soon and the cruiser is to 'cooperate with them as with allies'.
Russian forces today carried out 34 cruise missile strikes over Raqqa, which is seen as Islamic State's capital city, Idlib and Aleppo. They also deployed long-range Tu-160, Tu-95 and Tu-22 bombers from Russian bases. 

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France bombs IS stronghold as Paris attacker escapes
Candles next to a flower in a broken window of Le Carillon restaurant in Paris, the site of one of the attacks in the French capital on Friday. Photograph: Loic Venance/AFP/Getty Images

French aircraft conducted a “massive” bombardment of Islamic State’s stronghold in Raqqa, northern Syria, last night, 48 hours after eight jihadists dispatched by the group killed 129 people and wounded 352 others in Paris.

The defence ministry said 20 bombs targeted a command post and a training camp. President François Hollande had earlier vowed that “France will be merciless against the barbarians” of IS.

At the same time, French and Belgian authorities launched an international manhunt for a 26-year-old Frenchman who is believed to have been the “eighth terrorist” in the attacks.

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France Strikes ISIS Targets in Syria as Manhunt Under Way for Suspect
The bombings are aimed to destroy an ISIS munitions depot and a training camp for jihadist fighters

French fighter jets struck key targets of the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) late Sunday night, in a fierce bombing raid on the Syrian city of Raqqa, making good on President François Hollande’s promise for a gloves-off retaliation against the terrorist group, in response to the devastating terrorist attacks in Paris, which the French leader had called “an act of war.”

Around 10 p.m. Sunday — exactly two days after the attacks in Paris — French television announced that the country’s military had dropped 20 bombs on Raqqa, the headquarters of ISIS’s so-called caliphate. Defense officials said the military strikes aimed to destroy an ISIS munitions depot and a training camp for jihadist fighters. The strikes come as French police conducted a massive manhunt for an eighth attacker who escaped after Friday night’s killings.

In a weekend that has been filled with anguished emotion and raw pain, the French bombers struck Syria while a solemn memorial ceremony was under way in Paris’ soaring medieval Notre Dame cathedral, and while hundreds of people were gathered for spontaneous candlelight vigils at the sites of the attacks in the eastern 10th and 11th districts.

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France launches 'massive' airstrikes on Raqqa, Syria

France launched "massive" air strikes on the Islamic State group's de-facto capital in Syria Sunday night, destroying a jihadi training camp and a munitions dump in the city of Raqqa, where Iraqi intelligence officials say the attacks on Paris were planned.

Twelve aircraft including 10 fighter jets dropped a total of 20 bombs in the biggest air strikes since France extended its bombing campaign against the extremist group to Syria in September, a Defence Ministry statement said. The jets launched from sites in Jordan and the Persian Gulf, in co-ordination with U.S. forces.

On the sidelines of the G20 summit in Turkey on Sunday, France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said his country was justified in taking action in Syria.

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French jets pound ISIS stronghold in Syria



French fighter jets launched their biggest raids in Syria to date targeting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) stronghold in Raqqa just two days after the group claimed coordinated attacks in Paris that killed more than 130 people, the defence ministry said.

“The raid ... including 10 fighter jets, was launched simultaneously from the United Arab Emirates and Jordan. Twenty bombs were dropped,” the statement said, adding that the mission had taken place this evening.

The operation, carried out in coordination with U.S. forces, struck a command center, recruitment center for extremists, a munitions depot and a training camp for fighters, it said.

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France bombs ISIS targets, carries out terror raids in wake of Paris attacks

The scope of the terror threat facing Western Europe became increasingly clear on Monday as French police uncovered an "arsenal" of weapons in a series of pre-dawn raids on suspected Islamists, while France's prime minister warned that "terrorism could strike again in the days or weeks to come."

The raids in the French cities of Toulouse, Grenoble, and Jeumont and the Parisian suburbs of Saint-Denis and Bobigny came hours after French jets struck the heart of ISIS-controlled territory on Sunday in the first direct retaliation for Friday’s terror attacks that killed at least 129 people in Paris.

In a Monday morning interview with radio station RTL, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said that 150 searches had taken place across the country and confirmed that five people had been arrested in the city of Lyon, where, among other items, a rocket launcher was found.

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France launches wave of 'massive' bombing raids on ISIS targets, throwing jihadist group's Syrian capital Raqqa into panic as recruitment centre and training camp are blitzed 
French jets have launched a series of 'massive' air strikes on ISIS in Syria as the country started its 'pitiless' retribution for the terror attacks on Paris

The blitz was conducted by ten fighter planes which dropped 20 bombs on the terror group's capital of Raqqa, destroying a key command centre, training camp and munitions dump, throwing the city into panic.

The bombardment came just two days after President Francois Hollande said the co-ordinated attacks in Paris that killed up to 129 people was an 'act of war' and vowed to strike ISIS in Syria 'without mercy'.

In France, police carried out around 150 co-ordinated anti-terrorism raids across the country this morning, arresting dozens of suspects and seizing a cache of weapons including a rocket launcher.


French Police Detain Three Over Terror Attacks, Special Operation Ongoing
According to iTele television, "two or three suspects have been surrounded."


Several policemen sustained wounds during a special operation in the northern Paris suburb Saint Denis conducted over the terror attacks in the capital. Two or three suspects are reportedly surrounded.

Heavy gunshots have been heard in Saint Denis. Local police confirmed an operation is ongoing.

"Three people have already been detained," BFMTV said.

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150 Raids as France Goes to 'War With Terrorism'
A man is detained by police after a raid in Toulouse, France, on Monday. AP

Prime Minister Manuel Valls told the RTL radio more than 150 raids were carried out across the country.

"We are at war with terrorism," he told the station. "The terrorists can strike again."

The searches took place throughout the country, according to BFM TV, including in Toulouse, Grenoble, Bobigny and Lyon.

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Paris attacks: Police carry out 150 raids overnight in France

Anti terrorism police officers enter a building during a raid in the Mirail district in Toulouse

Police made more than 150 raids across France overnight following the attacks on Paris, French prime minister Manuel Valls has revealed as he warned terrorists are planning more strikes in Europe.

Mr Valls said France would continue air strikes against Isis targets in Syria as prosecutors provided details of two more of the men who carried out the shootings and suicide bombings in Paris on Friday night that killed at least 129 people.

The police raids, which focused mainly on Toulouse, Grenoble and Lyon, were conducted using powers available to police under the state of emergency declared by President François Hollande.

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Police carried out 150 anti-terror raids across France in the early hours of Monday morning, seizing an arsenal of weapons as the French Prime Minister warned more attacks are being planned.

In an effort to demonstrate how France has already been acting to prevent terror attacks, Cazeneuve lists a series of figures:
  • 62 people have been banned from French territory since January's PAris attacks
  • 80 extremists websites have been blocked by the government
  • Six people have been stripped of French nationality and numerous individuals have been deported
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