French warplanes pounded Islamic State positions in Syria on Sunday as police in Europe widened their investigations into coordinated attacks in Paris that killed more than 130 people. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for Friday’s suicide bombings and shootings, which have re-ignited a row over Europe’s refugee crisis and drawn calls to block a huge influx of Muslim asylum-seekers. French police have launched an international hunt for a Belgian-born man they believe helped organise the assaults with two of his brothers. One of the brothers died in the attacks, while the second is under arrest in Belgium, a judicial source said. A further two French suicide attackers have been identified, police said, while the identity of four other assailants, who were all killed, was still under review. France has been bombing Islamic State positions in Iraq and Syria for months as part of a U.S.-led operation. Following Friday’s mayhem, Paris vowed to destroy the group. Underlining its resolve, French jets on Sunday launched their biggest raids in Syria to date, hitting its stronghold in Raqqa. ‘The raid … including 10 fighter jets, was launched simultaneously from the United Arab Emirates and Jordan. Twenty bombs were dropped,’ the Defence Ministry said. Among the targets were a munitions depot and training camp, it said. There was no word on casualties or the damage inflicted. The Paris attacks were seen causing a short-term sell-off in global stock markets and Asian shares fell on Monday, but few strategists expected a prolonged economic impact or change in prevailing market directions. Illustrating the jittery mood in the French capital, hundreds of people gathered at a makeshift memorial in Place de la Republique scattered in panic on Sunday night when they thought shots had rung out. It was a false alarm, police said. Speaking in Vienna, Iraqi foreign minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said his country’s intelligence services had shared information indicating that France, the United States and Iran were among countries at risk of an attack. At a G20 summit in Turkey, US president Barack Obama vowed to step up efforts to eliminate Islamic State and prevent it carrying out attacks like those in Paris. EU leaders urged Russia to focus its military efforts on the radical Islamists. France was the first European state to join US air strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq, in September 2014, while a year later it extended its air strikes to Syria. Russia began its own air campaign in Syria in October, but has been targeting mainly areas controlled by other groups opposed to its ally, president Bashar al-Assad, Moscow’s critics say. France had already been on high alert since Islamist gunmen stormed the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket in Paris in January, killing 17 people. Those attacks briefly united France in defence of freedom of speech, with a mass demonstration of more than a million people. But far-right populist Marine Le Pen is now making gains by blaming France’s security problems on immigration and Islam. ‘By spreading out migrants through the villages and towns of France, there is a fear that terrorists will take advantage of these population flows to hit out at us,’ she said after meeting the French president on Sunday.
Source: New Age
