Says Russia needs support from US, European nations, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran against IS; France, Russia strike at IS in Syria; German police arrest five suspects; Kerry meets Hollande to discuss Syria coalition; Belgium hits back at French criticism
ANTALYA/PARIS: Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced that he has shared intelligence with the other G20 member states, which reveals the 40 countries from which ISIS (Daesh) finances the majority of their terrorist activities. The list reportedly included a number of G20 countries."I provided examples based on our data on the financing of different Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) units by private individuals. This money, as we have established, comes from 40 countries and, there are some of the G20 members among them," Putin told reporters.
In addition to discussing the need to stop the flow of donor money to ISIS, Putin also reiterated the need to stop the illegal oil trade by ISIS. “I’ve shown our colleagues photos taken from space and from aircraft which clearly demonstrate the scale of the illegal trade in oil and petroleum products,” he said.
“The motorcade of refueling vehicles stretched for dozens of kilometers, so that from a height of 4,000 to 5,000 meters they stretch beyond the horizon,” Putin said.
“Some armed opposition groups consider it possible to begin active operations against IS with Russia’s support. And we are ready to provide such support from the air. If it happens it could become a good basis for the subsequent work on a political settlement,” Putin said.
“We really need support from the US, European nations, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran,” the Russian president added.
Meanwhile, France and Russia staged air strikes on Islamic State targets in northern Syria on Tuesday, punishing the group for attacks in Paris and against a Russian airliner that together killed 353 people.
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a coordinated onslaught in Paris on Friday and the downing of a Russian charter 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 France formally requested European Union assistance in its fight against the militants and British Prime Minister David Cameron edged closer to extending military action against the Islamic State in Syria.
Police investigating the worst atrocity in France since World War Two discovered two safe houses in Paris where they believe the militants launched their assault. Underlining the widening scope of the probe, police in Germany said they arrested five suspects, including two women.
In Moscow, the Kremlin acknowledged that a bomb had destroyed a Russian airliner last month, killing 224 people.
President Vladimir Putin vowed to hunt down those responsible and intensify air strikes against Islamists in Syria. “Our air force’s military work in Syria must not simply be continued,” he said. “It must be intensified in such a way that the criminals understand that retribution is inevitable,” he added.
Western officials said Russia launched a “significant number” of strikes in Syria on Tuesday hitting the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa. In a separate action, apparently not coordinated, French warplanes targeted Raqqa for a second day.
French President Francois Hollande has said he will see Putin and US President Barack Obama in the coming days to try to convince them to join a grand coalition against the Islamic State which controls swathes of Syria and Iraq.
In Brussels, Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian invoked the EU’s mutual assistance clause for the first time since the 2009 Lisbon Treaty introduced the possibility, saying he expected help with French operations in Syria, Iraq and Africa. “This is firstly a political act,” Le Drian told a news conference after a meeting of EU defence chiefs. The 28 EU member states accepted the French request but it was not immediately clear what assistance would be forthcoming.
A manhunt was continuing in France and Belgium on Tuesday for one of the eight attackers in the Paris assault. French police staged 128 raids overnight in the hunt for accomplices and Islamist militant networks, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.
Police found a third Belgian-licensed car believed to have been used by the attackers and sealed off the area around it in Paris’ 18th district.
Cazeneuve told France Info radio police were making rapid progress in their investigation but declined to give details.
Hollande, who has declared a state of emergency, met visiting US Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday to press his call for the US-led and Russian-led coalitions to join forces.
Kerry told reporters afterwards that Islamic State was losing territory in Syria and Iraq, but said increased co-ordination with Moscow would require progress in a political drive to end the war.
The UN refugee agency and Germany’s police chief urged European countries not to demean or reject refugees because one of Friday’s Paris bombers was believed to have slipped into Europe among migrants registered in Greece. “We are deeply disturbed by language that demonises refugees as a group,” UN spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said after government officials in Poland, Slovakia and the German state of Bavaria cited the Paris attacks as a reason to refuse refugees.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said Paris would spare no expense to reinforce and equip its security forces and law enforcement agencies to fight terrorism, even though that was bound to involve breaching European budget deficit limits.
The European Commission said it would show understanding to France if additional security spending pushed up its deficit.
British war planes have been bombing the militants in Iraq, but not Syria. “It is in Syria, in Raqqa, that Isil has its headquarters and it is from Raqqa that some of the main threat against this country are planned and orchestrated,” Cameron said, referring to Islamic State by one of its many acronyms.
Meanwhile, Belgium hit back on Tuesday at French complaints that it had dropped the ball in investigations into Islamist militants involved in last Friday´s attacks in Paris.
French President Francois Hollande told parliament on Monday the coordinated suicide bombings and shootings which killed at least 129 people had been planned in Belgium.
A French intelligence source, commenting on Belgium´s security resources, said: “The Belgians just aren’t up to it.”
The comments drew wide coverage in media in Belgium, where officials scrambled to defend the country’s record. “A priori, there were only three individuals involved who came from Belgium, that means five were French,” Guy Rapaille, the head of Belgium’s intelligence oversight committee, told state broadcaster RTBF. “It will be up to the investigation to decide where the attacks were planned. We cannot decide in advance who are the ones responsible,” he added.
While, Gulf foreign ministers expressed solidarity with France Tuesday after attacks claimed by the Islamic State group killed at least 129 people in Paris.
“The ministers affirmed the support of the Gulf Cooperation Council to France and her friendly people at this difficult moment,” the six-nation bloc’s secretary general said in a statement after a meeting in the Saudi capital.
Calling in to MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Monday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said he would “strongly consider” shutting down mosques with suspected terrorist ties and slammed New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio for discontinuing surveillance of them.
When asked if there was something Trump would do “here in the homeland” to protect against attacks like the one in Paris over the weekend that killed more than 100 people, he responded, “Well, you’re going to have to watch and study the mosques because a lot of talk is going on at the mosques. And from what I heard in the old days, meaning a while ago, we had great surveillance going on in and around mosques in New York City and I understand our mayor totally cut that out. He totally cut it out.”