French president says he wants coalition dedicated to fighting ISIS
Source: Chicago Tribune
France wants to bring the United States and Russia together in a grand coalition dedicated to smashing the Islamic State group, President Francois Hollande told lawmakers Monday in a rare joint session in the Palace of Versailles as authorities worldwide struggled to pinpoint those responsible for the deadliest attacks on French soil since World War II.
"The faces of the dead people, of the wounded, of the families don't leave my mind," Hollande declared after France and many allies observed a minute of silence in honor of the 129 killed and 350 wounded when Islamic State attackers targeted a soccer stadium, a rock concert and four nightspots Friday with assault gun fire and suicide bombs.
"In my determination to combat terrorism, I want France to remain itself. The barbarians who attack France would like to disfigure it. They will not make it change," Hollande pledged. "They must never be able to spoil France's soul."
However, he signaled a likely monthslong security crackdown following security sweeps overnight in which police nationwide arrested 127 people and seized 31 weapons, including automatic firearms and a rocket launcher.
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Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-paris-attacks-20151116-story.html
msongs
(67,409 posts)the hard core crowd belong to ISIS and similar groups will do what they do anyway. the larger population has legitimate concerns that ISIS uses to generate support and sympathy. maybe we could just stop murdering so many people and the general support would diminish.
phantom power
(25,966 posts)doubly so, since they evidently are hoping we'll get into a shooting war with them.
The_Casual_Observer
(27,742 posts)Maybe this will be better?
uawchild
(2,208 posts)"Private donors from Gulf oil states helping to bankroll salaries of up to 100,000 Isis fighters
Islamic State is still receiving significant financial support from Arab sympathisers outside Iraq and Syria, enabling it to expand its war effort, says a senior Kurdish official.
The US has being trying to stop such private donors in the Gulf oil states sending to Islamic State (Isis) funds that help pay the salaries of fighters who may number well over 100,000.
Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff of the Kurdish President, Massoud Barzani, told The Independent on Sunday: There is sympathy for Daesh [the Arabic acronym for IS, also known as Isis] in many Arab countries and this has translated into money and that is a disaster. He pointed out that until recently financial aid was being given more or less openly by Gulf states to the opposition in Syria but by now most of these rebel groups have been absorbed into IS and Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda affiliate, so it is they who now have the money and the weapons. "
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-has-made-many-enemies-but-it-may-be-saved-by-their-inability-to-unite-10061739.html
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While we are at it, perhaps we can form a coalition to stop the governments of Turkey and Saudi Arabia from supporting Islamist extremists in Syria also.
"Turkey and Saudi Arabia alarm the West by backing Islamist extremists the Americans had bombed in Syria. Joint approach by Turkey and Saudi Arabia graphically illustrates how the interests of the Sunni regional powers are diverging from those of the US in Syria
Turkey and Saudi Arabia are actively supporting a hardline coalition of Islamist rebels against Bashar al-Assads regime that includes al-Qaedas affiliate in Syria, in a move that has alarmed Western governments.
The two countries are focusing their backing for the Syrian rebels on the combined Jaish al-Fatah, or the Army of Conquest, a command structure for jihadist groups in Syria that includes Jabhat al-Nusra, an extremist rival to Isis which shares many of its aspirations for a fundamentalist caliphate.
The decision by the two leading allies of the West to back a group in which al-Nusra plays a leading role has alarmed Western governments and is at odds with the US, which is firmly opposed to arming and funding jihadist extremists in Syrias long-running civil war."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-crisis-turkey-and-saudi-arabia-shock-western-countries-by-supporting-anti-assad-jihadists-10242747.html
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)tabasco
(22,974 posts)Let's make this a real coalition, not a sham coalition like the Bush/Cheney cabal put together for the illegal Iraq invasion.
US pressures Fiji for Iraqi troops (LOL)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2003-11-17/us-pressures-fiji-for-iraqi-troops/1510012
CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)Large sums of cash have been delivered by French government proxies across the Turkish border to rebel commanders in the past month, diplomatic sources have confirmed. The money has been used to buy weapons inside Syria and to fund armed operations against loyalist forces.
The French moves have stopped short of direct supply of weapons a bridge that no western state has yet been willing to cross in Syria. But, according to western and Turkish officials as well as rebel leaders, the influx of money has made a difference in recent weeks as momentum on the battlefields of the north steadily shifts towards the opposition.
Some of the French cash has reached Islamist groups who were desperately short of ammunition and who had increasingly turned for help towards al-Qaida aligned jihadist groups in and around Aleppo.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/dec/07/france-funding-syrian-rebels?CMP=twt_gu
Ok, I officially give up.
The above article says FRANCE "emerged as the most prominent backer of Syria's armed opposition and is now directly funding rebel groups around Aleppo as part of a new push to oust the embattled Assad regime" back in 2012?
Good Lord.
Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. Foreign intervention in civil wars ALWAYS exacerbates the carnage.
elmac
(4,642 posts)is to shut down any organization or business that deals with them. Easy to trace, just follow the money.
Cayenne
(480 posts)where purchased by the US State Dept.
jamzrockz
(1,333 posts)start a war in Syria?