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world NEWSMonday 28 September 2015

France carries out airstrikes in Syria against Islamic State IS loyalists kill 3
police in attack
ELAINE GANLEY France’s President Francois Hollande visits a public center for insertion of the Defense (EPIDE) in in Afghanistan
Associated Press
PARIS (AP) — Six French jet Montry, France. France has fired its first airstrikes in Syria as it expands military operations against R. FAIEZ
fighters targeted and de- L. O’DONNELL
stroyed an Islamic State Islamic State extremists, President Francois Hollande’s office announced Sunday, Sept. 27, 2015. Associated Press
training camp in eastern KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) —
Syria in a five-hour opera- The office said that “France has hit Syria” based on information from French reconnaissance Islamic State gunmen at-
tion on Sunday, President tacked checkpoints in east-
Francois Hollande an- flights sent earlier this month. (AP Photo/Jacques Brinon/Pool) ern Afghanistan on Sunday,
nounced, making good killing three police in the
on a promise to go after our territory, cutting short with France’s bid to press future of Syria cannot (in- group’s first attack on the
the group that he has said terrorist actions, acting in for a political solution to the clude President) Bashar country’s security forces,
is planning attacks against legitimate defense.” Syrian crisis. Beyond military Assad.” Afghan officials said.
several countries, including However, the limited strikes objectives, the strikes serve Sunday’s air raids on the The spokesman for the gov-
France. will likely have but a limited to bolster France’s position IS training camp site in the ernor of Nangarhar prov-
The multiple airstrikes were effect. The U.S.-led coali- in helping to find a solution Euphrates valley lasted ince, Ahmad Zia Abdulzai,
the first in Syria by France tion has been carrying out to a crisis that also includes about five hours, the De- said another eight police
as it expands its mission regular airstrikes that pun- Russia and Iran. fense Ministry said, with were wounded in the at-
against IS, until now cen- ish but have failed to deci- “France is talking with ev- fighter jets — five of them tack in the Achin district,
tered in Iraq. mate IS, which controls eryone and excluding no Delta-winged Rafales, tak- bordering Pakistan.
“The camp was totally de- large swaths of Syria. one,” Hollande said at the ing off from Jordan and Afghanistan responded to
stroyed,” Hollande said Hollande’s decision to car- U.N. While “all concerned the Persian Gulf, the minis- the pre-dawn attack with a
Sunday after arriving at the ry out targeted strikes on parties” must be included, try said without naming the wave of airstrikes that killed
United Nations, before the strategic IS sites is coupled he also stressed that “the Gulf location.q 85 IS militants, according
start of a major develop- to a statement from the
ment summit and the U.N. Afghan intelligence agen-
General Assembly bringing cy. “All the terrorists killed
together world leaders. were Pakistani citizens,” un-
“We’re sure there were no der the command of Hafiz
casualties” among civil- Saeed, who was also killed,
ians, he added. the National Directorate of
The French president’s of- Security statement said.
fice announced the strikes, Elsewhere in the country,
without details, in a state- a car bomb near a cricket
ment hours earlier. match in the eastern Pak-
“Our nation will strike each tika province killed nine
time our national security people and wounded 33,
is at stake,” the statement according to the Interior
said. Ministry. The Taliban said
Hollande told reporters they were not behind the
the strikes on the training attack. Until now IS loyal-
camp, and others to come, ists in Afghanistan have
were aimed at “protecting only clashed with Taliban
insurgents. The two militant
Putin slams US policy in Syria ahead of Obama meet groups are fighting for Is-
lamic rule but are bitterly
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian only four or five fighters af- interview with U.S. net- structures runs counter to divided over strategy and
President Vladimir Pu- ter about 50 others were works CBS and PBS to be the principles of modern leadership. A statement
tin sharply criticized U.S. captured, wounded or broadcast Sunday eve- international law and the purportedly issued by an IS
military support for Syrian fled in their first encounter ning in the United States. United Nations charter,” affiliate claimed a “big at-
rebels, describing it as not with extremist militants. The Kremlin released an Putin said. tack” in Nangarhar.
only illegal but counter- “It turns out that just 60 excerpt of the interview His statements show how The group, referring to itself
productive, in an interview were properly trained, earlier in the day. far apart Russia and the as the Khorasan Province
broadcast Sunday before only four or five with weap- Defending Russia’s military U.S. remain on Syria. of the Islamic State, posted
his meeting with President ons are fighting, while the buildup in Syria and sup- Putin and Obama meet a statement on Twitter that
Barack Obama. rest of them simply took port for President Bashar on Monday on the side- was circulated by support-
Putin made a point of not- the American weapons Assad, he described lines of the U.N. Gener- ers. It said militants seized
ing the Pentagon’s recent and ran over to join ISIS,” Assad’s army as the only al Assembly, after both two army barracks in Achin,
admission that an effort Putin, using an alternate “legitimate” one in Syria. leaders address the an- set fire to an army vehicle,
to train more than 5,000 acronym for the Islamic The U.S. “provision of nual gathering of world seized weapons and killed
Syrian rebels had yielded State group, said in the military support to illegal leaders.q nine “apostates.”q