French warplanes have launched 30 airstrikes on more than a dozen Islamic State targets in Raqqa, activists in the Syrian city have said.

The raids were France’s first retaliation to Friday’s coordinated attacks in Paris claimed by Isis, in which at least 129 people were killed.

Residents said the targets bombed in the de facto capital of the militants’ self-proclaimed caliphate included the local Isis political office, the southern entrance to the city and a military camp.

“The French airstrikes were precise and targeted Daesh positions,” said one activist, using an Arabic acronym for Isis. “They hit Isis headquarters and camps that have ammunition warehouses as well as vehicles and [Isis] members.”

Division 17, an army base to the north of the city, had been under Isis control since July 2014.

Isis claimed responsibility for Friday’s attacks in Paris, saying it had targeted France because of its role in the coalition carrying out airstrikes in Syria and describing it as a haven for “crusaders”.

Raqqa activists said Isis members had distributed sweets in the city in the aftermath of the operation, and forced residents to give interviews endorsing the Paris attacks.

The French defence ministry said in a statement that the sites targeted had previously been identified on reconnaissance flights.

The decision to launch retaliatory airstrikes against the group was an act of self-defence, the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, has said.

“France has always said that because she has been threatened and attacked by Daesh, it would be normal that she would react in the framework of self-defence. That’s what we did today with the strikes on Raqqa,” he said from the G20 summit in Turkey. “We can’t let Daesh act without reacting.”

The French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said the attack on Paris was masterminded by terrorist leaders within Syria, who “commissioned” operatives in Belgium to carry out the assault.

“A group situated in Syria … is organising attacks [with] actors situated in Belgium who are not known to our services, and is inciting them to act on French territory, just like they incite them to act in other European cities,” Cazeneuve said in an interview on France 2 TV.

The French airstrikes were followed on Monday morning by US-led coalition raids that targeted positions around the city, including near Ain Issa, a town 30 miles (48km) from Raqqa that was seized by Kurdish fighters earlier this year.

Russian planes also bombed what activists said was a residential neighbourhood, killing five people. They said no civilians were reported killed in the French strikes.

The French raids were launched simultaneously from the United Arab Emirates and Jordan in coordination with US forces, the French defence ministry said.

France is part of a US-led coalition against Isis, and had taken a more active role than other members of the alliance in targeting the group. The country’s leaders are also staunch opponents of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad.

The retaliatory strikes were discussed between the French defence minister, Jean-Yves Le Drain, and the US defence secretary, Ash Carter, in phone calls on Saturday and Sunday.

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According to the French MoD (Ministry of Defense), a dozen French aircraft conducted air strikes against ISIS targets located in Raqqa, Syria on Nov. 15.

The aircraft, Mirage 2000N and Mirage 2000Ds and Rafales, were launched at 19.50 and 20.25 CET, struck an Islamic State command center and a training camp: about 20 targets even though there are reports of more buildings hit by the French bombs.

The raids come about 48 hours seven coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris killed 132 people and injuring 352.

Raqqa is an ISIS stronghold. It was reported earlier on Sunday Nov. 15 that the U.S. intelligence has intercepted communications between Raqqa and the terrorists in Paris ahead of the deadly attack on Friday Nov. 13.

The aircraft that took part in the “massive” airstrike in Raqqa are part of Operation Chammal, the French air campaign in Iraq and Syria launched on Sept. 19, 2014 and consisting of 12 tactical jets (six Rafale, three Mirage 2000D and three Mirage 2000N aircraft) and one Atlantique 2 MPA (Maritime Patrol Aircraft).

On Sept. 27, five Rafale jets, an Atlantique 2and a C-135 tanker aircraft “launched by airbases located in Jordan and the Persian Gulf,” were involved in the first French mission against an ISIS training camp in Syria as part of Operation Chammal.

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France launched a massive air attack against the Islamic State on Sunday by dropping bombs on Raqqa, Syria, the group's de facto capital.

The airstrikes come after Friday's terrorist attacks across Paris, which killed at least 129 people.

French military planes dropped 20 bombs on Islamic State targets within an hour. France destroyed an Islamic State command and recruiting center that also served as a weapons depot, as well as a training center for jihadists.

The United States collaborated with the French on these attacks, and carried out their own Monday, destroying more than 100 oil tankers belonging to the extremist group, as ISIS apparently makes $1.5 million a day by selling oil. 

Story by Allan Smith and editing by Adam Banicki

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VERSAILLES, France (Reuters) - France will step up strikes in Syria where Friday's shootings and suicide bombings in Paris had been planned, President Francois Hollande said on Monday.

In an extraordinary address to both houses of parliament, Hollande called on the United Nations Security Council to rapidly issue a resolution against terrorism.

"In the mean time, France will intensify its operations in Syria," Hollande said, describing the country as "the biggest factory of terrorists the world has known".

SEE ALSO: French reporter to Obama: Isn't it time to change your ISIS strategy?

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NOW WATCH: France says it hit two targets in airstrikes on ISIS capital

Over the past few days, the US military has targeted Islamic State leaders with airstrikes in Syria and Iraq.

The first strike, which took place in Raqqa, Syria, on Nov. 12, targeted Mohamed Emwazi, the infamous British executioner who is better known as “Jihadi John.”

Emwazi was the masked man behind the videotaped murders of US, British, and Japanese reporters and aide workers. From a Department of Defense press release announcing the strike:

US forces yesterday conducted an airstrike in Raqqa, Syria, targeting Mohamed Emwazi, also known as “Jihadi John,” according to a statement issued by Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook.

“Emwazi, a British citizen, participated in the videos showing the murders of US journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley, US aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, and a number of other hostages,” Cook said in the statement.

“We are assessing the results of tonight’s operation and will provide additional information as and where appropriate,” Cook added.

US officials are fairly certain Emwazi is dead. The Islamic State has not released an official statement announcing his death.

On November 13th, the US targeted an Iraqi jihadist known as Abu Nabil. The military said this was “the first US strike against an ISIL [Islamic State] leader in Libya” and the “operation was authorized and initiated prior to the terrorist attack in Paris,” which was carried out by the Islamic State. From the press release:

On November 13, the US military conducted an airstrike in Libya against Abu Nabil, aka Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al Zubaydi, an Iraqi national who was a longtime al Qaeda operative and the senior ISIL leader in Libya.

Reporting suggests he may also have been the spokesman in the February 2015 Coptic Christian execution video. Nabil’s death will degrade ISIL’s ability to meet the group’s objectives in Libya, including recruiting new ISIL members, establishing bases in Libya, and planning external attacks on the United States.

The press release noted that the strike against Abu Babil “demonstrates [that] we will go after ISIL leaders wherever they operate.”

The strikes that targeted Emwazi and Abu Nabil should serve as a reminder that 14 years after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, the military and intelligence establishment remain hyper-focused on targeting individuals in the hopes of causing the collapse of jihadist groups.

Unfortunately as the US drone campaigns in Pakistan and Yemen have shown, jihadist groups (in those cases, al Qaeda, and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, respectively) have proven to be resilient in the face of the targeting and killing of its leaders and key operatives. Al Qaeda and its splinter group the Islamic State control territory and have a deep bench of leaders and operatives who are willing to step in for those killed in the air campaigns.

The suicide assault in Paris, France should serve as a reminder that these groups cannot be dismantled by air power alone.

Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of The Long War Journal.

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NOW WATCH: This Paris attack suspect is the subject of a massive manhunt

Authorities think Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a 27-year-old Belgian national, is the mastermind behind Friday's brutal terrorist attacks in Paris. The attacks killed at least 129 people.

"He appears to be the brains behind several planned attacks in Europe," a source close to the investigation told Reuters. Abaaoud, who has allegedly executed a number of Islamic State prisoners, is currently in Syria, Reuters reports.

Authorities conducted raids in his Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek following the Paris attacks.

Story by Allan Smith and editing by Adam Banicki

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President Barack Obama on Monday forcefully rejected a suggestion, put forward by multiple Republican presidential candidates, that only Christians fleeing the civil war in Syria should be admitted to the US as refugees.

In a press conference at the G-20 summit in Turkey, Obama called such proposals "shameful." 

"When I hear folks say that, 'Well, maybe we should just admit the Christians, but not the Muslims,'" Obama said. "When I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which a person who is fleeing a war torn country is admitted, when some of those folks themselves come from families who benefited from protection when they were fleeing from political persecution, that's shameful. That's not American."

Obama's comments were perceived as a veiled reference to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who has said his father fled Cuba in the 1950s after being beaten as a young Cuban revolutionary.

On Saturday, Cruz slammed Obama's strategy against the Islamic State, the terrorist group that has claimed responsibility for attacks in Paris last Friday that have left at least 129 people dead. Those attacks have provided fuel for those arguing for tighter border controls and against accepting larger numbers of Syrian refugees.

Cruz, who last year seemed to embrace the idea of accepting such refugees, told Fox News on Saturday that the US should only accept Christian refugees fleeing violence.

"It makes no sense whatsoever to for us to be bringing in refugees who our intelligence cannot determine if they are terrorists here to kill us or not. Those who are fleeing persecution should be resettled in the Middle East and majority Muslim countries," Cruz said. "Now, on the other hand, Christians who are being targeted for genocide or persecution, Christians who are being beheaded or crucified, we should be providing safe haven to them." 

Many Republican presidential candidates have called for restrictions on accepting Syrian refugees into the US following revelations that one of the suspects in the attacks had a Syrian passport, the authenticity of which has yet to be verified.

And Cruz isn't the only candidate calling for a Christian-focused refugee screening. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) also said on Sunday that he would pursue a refugee plan that would prioritize Christian refugees.  

"We should focus our efforts as it relates to refugees on the Christians that are being slaughtered,"Bush told CNN on Sunday.

In his press conference on Monday, Obama praised his predecessor, President George W. Bush, for his response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"I was very proud after 9/11 when he was adamant and clear that this was not a war against Islam," Obama said. "And the notion that some of the those who have taken leadership in his party would ignore all that — that's not who we are. On this, they should follow his example. It was the right one."

During his speech on Monday, Obama also pushed back on the notion that the refugee crisis should be defined by the attacks. 

"The people who are fleeing Syria are the most harmed by terrorism, they are the most vulnerable as a consequence of civil war and strife," Obama said. "It is very important...that we do not close our hearts to the victims of such violence and somehow start equating the issue of refugees with the issue of terrorism."

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BELEK, Turkey (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday ruled out a shift in strategy in the fight against the Islamic State despite the deadly attacks in Paris last week, saying putting U.S. troops on the ground to combat the group "would be a mistake."

Obama, speaking after a G20 leaders' summit in Turkey, said the U.S.-led coalition fightingIslamic State in Iraq and Syria would redouble efforts to implement the current strategy rather than moving in a new direction, even as the militants threatened to strike Washington.

"We are going to continue the strategy that has the best chance of working," Obama told a news conference.

"This is not a traditional military opponent. We can retake territory and as long as we keep ourtroops there we can hold it. But that does not solve the underlying problem of eliminating the dynamics that are producing these kinds of violent, extremist groups," he added.

The U.S. president said avoiding sending American troops into Iraq and Syria to take on IslamicState directly "is not just my view, but the view of my closest military and civilian advisers."

"There will be an intensification of the strategy that we put forward but the strategy that we put forward is the strategy that ultimately is going to work," Obama said.

He said the key was to resolve the political crisis in Syria that has fueled years of civil war and at the same time to reduce the size of territory over which Islamic State holds sway, handing it over to local forces who can hold it and keep the group out over the long term.

"That ultimately is what is going to make a difference and it's going to take time," the U.S. leader said.

Obama said the coordinated attacks that killed 129 people in Paris on Friday were a setback in the fight against Islamic State, but he insisted the U.S.-led coalition was making progress in bringing down the militant group, which overran parts of Syria and Iraq last year.

He said U.S. intelligence agencies have been concerned about a potential attack on the West byIslamic State militants for over a year but they did not pick up specific threats about an attack on Paris that would have enabled officials there to respond effectively to deter the assault.

"There were no specific mentions of this particular attack that would give us a sense of something that we could provide French authorities, for example, or act on ourselves," he said.

The Paris attacks prompted France to intensify aerial strikes on Raqqa, Syria, the Islamic State's stronghold.

The group warned in a new video on Monday that countries taking part in air strikes against Syria would suffer the same fate as France, and threatened to target Washington.

Obama pushed back against Republican critics who say he has not been forceful enough in dealing with Islamic State militants, saying very few of his opponents were offering specific plans to deal with the problem.

"If folks want to pop off and have opinions about what they think they would do, present a specific plan," Obama said. "If they think that somehow their advisers are better than the chairman of my Joint Chiefs of Staff and the folks who are actually on the ground ... we can have that debate."

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President Barack Obama explained why he won't be sending troops to Syria after the Islamic State's barbaric terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday.

When asked about his strategy to fight ISIS at the G-20 summit in Turkey on Monday, he replied:

"There have been a few who have suggested that we should put large numbers of US troops on the ground... It's not just my view, but the view of my closest military and civilian advisers that that would be a mistake, not because our military could not march into Mosul or Raqqa or Ramadi and temporarily clear out ISIL, but because we would see a repetition of what we've seen before, which is that if you don't have local populations that are committed to inclusive governments, and who are pushing back against ideological extremes, that they resurface unless we're prepared to have a permanent occupation of these countries. And let's assume that we were to send 50,000 troops into Syria, what happens when there is a terrorist attack generated from Yemen? Do we then send more troops into there? Or Libya, perhaps? Or if there is a terrorist network that is operating anywhere else in North Africa or in Southeast Asia. So a strategy has to be one that can be sustained."

At least 129 were killed in various terror attacks across Paris on Friday, for which the Islamic State claimed responsibility. France and the United States have already responded with numerous airstrikes on ISIS targets in Syria.

Story by Allan Smith and editing by Chelsea Pineda

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The past three weeks have seen a series of horrific successes by ISIS.

The November 13 attacks on Paris followed bombings in Bagdad, Beirut, and Ankara, as well as the likely downing of a Russian passenger plane over Egypt on October 31. 

Although it is extremely difficult to predict, there's a lot of evidence to suggest that Russia may be high on ISIS's list of targets.

Writing in The Washington Post, Leon Aron, the director of Russian studies at the American Enterprise Institute, notes that ISIS already has a foothold in the country. 

Russia has fought against militant Islamists since the 1990s war in Chechnya, and has suffered numerous terrorist attacks throughout the country over the past 15 years. The Caucasus Emirate, a grouping of rebels throughout the mountainous southeastern region near the Black Sea, has recently sworn allegiance to ISIS. 

This wellspring of continued discontent in the Caucasus could buffer ISIS. Additionally, Aron notes, economic migrants from Central Asian countries like Uzbekistan and Tajikistan that travel to Russia in search of work opportunities can face extreme marginalization and abuse in Russia, leading some to fall under the influence of radical clerics operating in the country. 

Once radicalized, these migrants can find an existing ISIS recruitment operation in the country. 

"Moscow has become the base of operation for an estimated 300 to 500 Islamic State recruiters," Aron writes, citing a Russian-language media report. "According to reports in the Russian media (much of which is controlled by the government), most Islamic State fighters from Central Asia have been recruited at construction sites in Moscow, including an estimated 300 ethnic Uzbeks."

Aron notes that Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the Security Council of Russia, said that Russia did not have the ability to prevent the flow of potential ISIS fighters to Syria and Iraq.

CIA director John Brennan echoed this assessment during a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies Global Security Forum on November 16. Brenanan told the forum that he and his Russian counterpart have engaged in conversations about how to best stem the flow of "individuals into and out of that theater of operations." 

"There are over 2,000, maybe 3,000, Russian nationals that have come down from the Caucuses, from Chechnya, Dagestan, and other areas, into the Syria-Iraq area," Brennan said. "There are a number of individuals, Shishani [a prominent ISIS commander], who are senior officials within ISIL." 

This flow of militants into Syria and Iraq from Russia and Central Asia is one of the main factors Russian president Vladimir Putin cited for conducting airstrikes in Syria, Reuters reports. Moscow wanted to target any potential militants abroad before they could return to Russia to carry out attacks. 

But the airstrikes may be having the opposite affect. On October 28th, Alexander Bortnikov, the head of Russia's FSB, the successor to agency to the Soviet-era KGB, said that a group ISIS-linked militants who received training in Syria were arrested in Moscow after planning attacks on public transport, the AP reports. The group reportedly had an 11-pound homemade bomb. 

The Kremlin's method of conducting airstrikes in Syria may also be playing into ISIS's hands and could trigger retaliation against ISIS.

Russia has largely avoided using more costly precision-guided bombs and has instead resorted to using the cheaper and significantly less accurate "dumb bombs," Foreign Policy reports. Strikes against what locals consider to be civilian targets might instead send more of them into the militant group's arms.

Russia has also focused most of its attacks in Syria against opponents of the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, and not against ISIS. Given that Assad is fighting against a range of Sunni rebel and jihadist groups, support for his government could make Russia even more of a target.

"ISIS is using this to say to the people, especially the poor or the not-well-educated people, 'We are fighting Russia, the US, the crusaders.' They are using this to recruit new guys to work and fight for them," Syrian activist Abu Ibrahim Raqqawi, from the group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, told Business Insider over Skype.

 "ISIS is happy in some way to have Russia bombing them now," Raqqawi added. "After the Russian airstrikes, you had more boys thinking of signing up, thinking they want to fight Russia or fight the US."

That desire for revenge isn't limited to ISIS-held areas. A desire to strike back at Russia is on display throughout Syria as anti-Assad groups across the country have been the target of Russain airstrikes.

In Darayya, a suburb of Damascus, for instance, Aron notes that Russian graffiti reportedly said: “Today Syria, tomorrow Russia! Chechens and Tatars rise up! Putin, we will pray in your palace!”

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Amid the fallout of the deadly terror attacks in Paris, a number of US governors are rejecting the relocation of Syrian refugees to the US.

Among the governors are John Kasich and Bobby Jindal, who are both running to be the next president of the United States. 

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The public debate over how the U.S. should respond to terror attacks in Paris and the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis quickly turned toxic in the past 24 hours. Two candidates for the Republican presidential nomination advocated a “Christians only” policy for the resettlement of displaced Syrians and governors lined up to declare that Syrians were not welcome in their states, prompting an angry reaction from President Obama.

The reaction against Syrian refugees is due in part to the suggestion that one of the Paris attackers, who are believed to have been affiliated with the terror group ISIS, was able to get into the European Union by posing as a refugee fleeing the violence of the Syrian civil war. The Obama administration has pledged to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next year and has promised to carefully screen them for ties to terror groups first.

However, lawmakers have said that they don’t believe the administration has the ability to do that effectively.

“You can have a thousand people come in and 999 of them are just poor people fleeing oppression and violence,” said Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a leading candidate for the GOP presidential nomination. “But one of them is an Isis fighter – if that’s the case, you have a problem.”

He added, “There’s no way to vet that out. There’s no background check system in the world that allows us to find that out because who do you call in Syria to background check them?”

On Sunday, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Rep. Peter King (R-NY), who chairs the committee’s panel on counterterrorism and intelligence, said that law enforcement and intelligence sources have told them such background checks are ineffective.

Speaking at the G-20 meeting he attended over the weekend in Turkey, President Obama pushed back hard against the idea that the U.S. should prevent Syrian refugees from coming to the U.S.

“As president, my first priority is the safety of the American people. And that's why even as we accept more refugees, including Syrians, we do so only after subjecting them to rigorous screening and security checks. We also have to remember that many of these refugees are the victims of terrorism themselves. That's what they're fleeing. Slamming the door in their faces would be a betrayal of our values. Our nations can welcome refugees who are desperately seeking safety and ensure our own security. We can and must do both.”

Obama also sharply rebuked politicians who “feed the dark impulse” to demonize entire cultures or religions because of the actions of a few.

“When I hear folks say that, well, maybe we should just admit the Christians but not the Muslims, when I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which person who's fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted, when some of those folks themselves come from families who benefited from protection when they were fleeing political persecution, that's shameful. That's not American, it's not who we are.”

Obama’s remarks appeared to directly target Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who has called for the U.S. to limit itself to accepting Christian refugees only, saying on Sunday, “There is no meaningful risk of Christians committing acts of terror. If there were a group of radical Christians pledging to murder anyone who had a different religious view than they, we would have a different national security situation.”

Though Cruz is not the only GOP candidate to call for limiting immigration from Syria to Christians – former Florida governor Jeb Bush said the same thing on Sunday – a big part of Cruz’s political biography is that his father escaped the repressive Castro regime in Cuba and found sanctuary in the U.S.

Obama continued, “It is good to remember that the United States does not have a religious test and we are a nation of many peoples of different faiths, which means that we show compassion to everybody. Those are the universal values we stand for.”

The president’s remarks, however, did little to stem the tide of governors issuing statements and signing orders designed to block any effort to resettle Syrian refugees in their states.

By early afternoon on Monday, the governors of Alabama, Michigan, Indiana, Louisiana, Arkansas, Illinois, Mississippi and Texas – all of whom are Republicans – had said that their states would not accept Syrian refugees. Gov. Charlie Baker, of Massachusetts, also a Republican, said that he would not support the resettlement of Syrian refugees in his state until he is satisfied with the process being used to screen them for ties to ISIS or other terror groups.

It is far from clear that the governors of U.S. states have the authority to block individual Syrians whom the federal government allows into the country from settling anywhere they please. However, they do have the ability to block state-level agencies from providing assistance to federal programs facilitating the resettlement of refugees.

A statement released by Texas Gov. Greg Abbot captured the general tone of the most of announcements: “Given the tragic attacks in Paris and the threats we have already seen, Texas cannot participate in any program that will result in Syrian refugees – any one of whom could be connected to terrorism – being resettled in Texas.”

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Western countries and the Middle East are (finally) engaged in serious negotiations around resettling many more of the refugees from Syria – the largest humanitarian crisis since World War II.

While arguments around global complicity and moral obligation in the Middle East should and do inspire aid to refugees, they do not always persuade policymakers as much as pragmatic ones that refugees benefit the countries that welcome them.

With this in mind, it is worth highlighting arguments like that of economist Daniel Altman, who notes the clear economic benefits to countries for absorbing refugees.

Yet there is another strong argument to be made that offering temporary or permanent homes to specifically Syrian refugees is in the national interest of countries like the US. In particular, such refugees can be crucial resources in tackling the extremist violence and authoritarian excess that we are now witnessing in the Middle East.

They can do this in three specific ways.

First, they will no longer be part of the problem by escaping the immediate threat of violence or radicalization. Second, their experience can serve as an important example for others. Third, they have the skills and the background that can be put to work in the broader struggle to defeat parochialism and repression in the Middle East.

No longer part of the problem

For starters, Syrians who are repatriated out of harm’s way are unlikely future contributors to Middle Eastern religious or authoritarian violence.

The logic of this is clear; refugees are fleeing Bashar al-Assad, the Islamic State or both. Having experienced the extreme disruption of Syria’s brutal civil war caused by the Assad regime’s brutal crackdown on domestic uprisings and the subsequent exploitation of this disruption by ISIS, they are unlikely to entertain illusions about the merits of violence.

Indeed, as has been the case for earlier populations of refugees, like Vietnamese-Americans, displaced Syrians should be able to appreciate the societies and people who help them during their time of need, whether or not they return to their country of origin. To assume that many Syrians are would-be jihadis after what they have experienced requires, to my mind, a leap of (paranoid) faith.

In any case, if Middle Eastern and Western governments alike fear the radicalization of Syrians, showing them compassion and generosity in their hour of need is a far more obvious strategy to address this fear than forcing them to choose between fighting or capture in Syria and possible death if they leave.

Serving as an example for others

Refugees from World War II were instrumental in calling Americans' attention to the specific tragedies of that conflict.

For instance, Elie Wiesel’s memoir of Auschwitz, Night, which he published soon after becoming an American in 1958, remains a central testimony to the particular cruelty of the Nazi Holocaust and extreme inhumanity more generally.

The adoption of Syrian refugees by countries like the US will produce similar direct and gripping eyewitness of the massive atrocities that we know have been perpetrated by both the Assad regime and ISIS. Americans have been inspired by the story of the Pakistani student Malala Yousafzai. Syrian Malalas with stories of their own await our attention.

More specifically, if Syrian refugees are welcomed in sufficient numbers and go on to connect with a broad variety of Americans, two groups of people – both important in the struggle against violence and extremism in the Middle East – could learn from their example.

First, Syrian witnesses to the reality of ISIS could provide a reality check for alienated Muslim-Americans who romanticize, or are drawn by ISIS media handlers to the pseudo Islamic caliphate.

Second, and at least as important, the example of hardworking Syrian Muslims and Christians with harrowing stories holds the potential to provide concrete sources of empathy to those Americans inclined to stereotype Middle Easterners and Muslims. This empathy would be a counter to the sort of Western-based Islamophobia that has a role in fueling ongoing conflict between parts of the West and the Middle East.

Potential problem solvers

Most Syrian refugees who come to the US will pursue or build on the many interests and careers they developed in preconflict Syria, hopefully bolstered by the best of what America has to offer: generosity and freedom.

Some refugees, however, might use their experience and knowledge to be engaged directly in the struggle against Middle Eastern violence.

By this, I am not talking of the possibility that they could join the American military or national security agencies, although this is not out of the question.

What I want to highlight, rather, is that the refugee crisis in itself reminds us that the scale of the violence in the Middle East is massive and that further violence is unlikely to solve the problem.

Middle Eastern conflict in recent decades teaches two lessons: that repeated saber-rattling only produces more and sharper sabers, and that, as a result, the underlying dynamics of conflicts must be addressed.

Before its 2011 breakdown, Syria – with its religious and ethnic pluralism– was an unusual Middle Eastern society.

Many Syrian refugees know what it is like to live with people of other religions and other ethnicities. This experience, coupled with Syrians’ familiarity with the region and their ability to communicate in Arabic, would allow refugees so inclined to work collaboratively with officials and civilians on projects fostering tolerance and defusing conflict in the region.

In short, Syrian refugees hold key assets and life stories that can indirectly and directly contribute to the long, but necessary, struggle to defuse violent religious conflict and repression in the Middle East.

Moreover, they have the incentive to do so.

For this reason, as well as basic humanitarianism, the US should dramatically increase – and quickly – the number of refugees from Syria that it takes in.

Indeed, the same logic applies to other Western and Middle Eastern countries with a strong stake in avoiding the increasingly stark future of horrific political repression in Syria – whether in the name of Assad’s secularism or ISIS’s Islamism.

Riveting Syrian refugee tragedies like that of three-year-old Alan Kurdi should be a wake-up call. The current crisis can be turned an opportunity to make a dent in the region’s suffering once and for all.

(David Mednicoff, Assistant Professor of Public Policy; Director of Accelerated Degree Programs, Center for Public Policy and Adminstration; and Director, Middle Eastern Studies, University of Massachusetts Amherst)

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Like several of his fellow Republican presidential candidates, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie took a hard line Monday against the US accepting refugees from Syria.

"I do not trust this administration to effectively vet the people who are proposed to be coming in, in order to protect the safety and security of the American people, so I would not permit them in," Christie told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.

Hewitt pressed Christie on the possibility of even accepting "orphans under the age of 5," but the governor held firm.

"We can come up with 18 different scenarios. The fact is that we need appropriate vetting, and I don't think orphans under 5 should be admitted into the United States at this point," Christie said.

"They have no family here. How are we going to care for these folks?" he asked. "The fact is, you can come up with a number of different scenarios, Hugh. But in the end, I don't trust this administration to effectively vet the people that they're asking us to take in. We need to put the safety and security of the American people first."

The Syrian-refugee issue became a flash point in US politics after last week's terrorist attacks in Paris, which left more than 129 people dead. One of the attackers was reportedly carrying a passport that indicated that he was a Syrian refugee, which further ignited opposition to US President Barack Obama's plan to accept thousands of people fleeing the violence in Syria.

Most of the Republican field has slammed Obama on the issue since the weekend, and a number of governors said they would try to thwart Obama's plan in their states.

For his part, Obama issued a passionate defense of accepting Syrian refugees during a Monday press conference.

"The people who are fleeing Syria are the most harmed by terrorism, they are the most vulnerable as a consequence of civil war and strife," Obama said. "It is very important ... that we do not close our hearts to the victims of such violence and somehow start equating the issue of refugees with the issue of terrorism."

SEE ALSO: Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee on Paris attacks: 'It's time to wake up and smell the falafel'

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Russia told the United Nations on Monday it was "outraged" by allegations that it had killed civilians in Syria and destroyed civilian infrastructure as a U.S.-based rights group accused Moscow's air force of bombing 10 medical facilities in October.

Russia launched air strikes in Syria to help bolster forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad at the end of September, but Western powers accuse Moscow of targeting anti-Assad rebels instead of Islamic State militants. A U.S.-led coalition has been bombing Islamic State in Syria and Iraq for more than year.

Physicians for Human Rights said there had been 16 attacks on medical facilities in Syria in October, the worst toll since the civil war began nearly five years ago. It blamed at least 10 of those attacks and one death on Russian air strikes.

"We are outraged by different types of information regarding alleged civilian deaths and destruction of civilian infrastructure as a result of missile and air strikes by the Russian armed forces," Russian Deputy U.N. Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov told a U.N. Security Council meeting on Syria.

Citing recent meetings of an International Syria Support Group in Vienna that aims to end the conflict, he dubbed unacceptable what he called "the politicization of human rights and humanitarian topics."

Without laying any blame, U.N. aid chief Stephen O'Brien told the Security Council that attacks on civilian infrastructure continued unabated.

"We need a firm commitment from the parties to the conflict to take all necessary measures to protect civilians and stop the targeting of civilian infrastructure, including medical facilities, schools and key infrastructure networks," he said.

A Syrian government crackdown on a pro-democracy movement in early 2011 led to an armed uprising. Islamic State militants took advantage of the chaos to seize territory in Syria and Iraq.

The United Nations says at least 250,000 people have been killed during the conflict, while four million have fled.

"Increased fighting in Northern Syria, including Russian military operations, has also had a significant impact on the humanitarian situation," U.S. Deputy U.N. Ambassador Michele Sison told the Security Council, adding that in October alone, about 130,000 people had been newly displaced in Aleppo, Idlib, and Hama.

The United States apologized in October to medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres for a deadly bombing of its hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, while a Saudi Arabia-led coalition was accused by the United Nations of bombing a hospital in Yemen.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Christian Plumb)

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PARIS — France carried out fresh airstrikes on Islamic State bases in northern Syria on Tuesday as the police made 128 overnight raids across France in the hunt for accomplices to Friday night's Paris attacks claimed by the terrorist group.

French warplanes targeted a command center and a recruitment center for jihadists in the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa in the second consecutive night of strikes ordered by President Francois Hollande, a military command spokesman told Reuters.

The strike involved 10 fighter jets launched from the United Arab Emirates and Jordan. French defense officials said the US had stepped up intelligence sharing, enabling Paris to identify more specific targets.

At home, the police conducted 128 raids overnight after the wave of shootings and suicide bombings at restaurants, a concert hall, and a sports stadium around Paris that killed at least 129 people, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.

He told France Info radio that the police were making rapid progress in their investigation into the attacks, but he declined to give details.

One top suspect, Belgian-born Frenchman Salah Abdeslam, 26, remains at large after escaping back to Belgium early on Saturday and eluding a police dragnet in the Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek, where he lived with his two brothers.

Hollande has declared a state of emergency allowing administrative arrests and searches without a warrant after the bloodiest attacks in French history.

The president was due to meet visiting US Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday morning to press his call for the US and Russia to join in a grand global coalition to fight Islamic State in Syria.

"France is at war," Hollande told a solemn joint session of parliament at the Palace of Versailles on Monday, promising to increase funds for national security and strengthen anti-terrorism laws in response to the attacks.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls said Hollande would travel to Washington and Moscow next week to press his case for a single alliance to combat Islamic State instead of the current situation in which Russia is supporting the forces of President Bashar Assad in conjunction with Iran, while the US and France are in a coalition with Sunni Arab states opposed to Assad.

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.

"They will necessarily be exceeded, because the resources we are giving the security services will not come from other budgets. We have to face up to this, and Europe ought to understand," he told France Inter radio.

Elsewhere in Europe, Britain was due to announce it would nearly double spending on cybersecurity to keep Islamic militants from launching online attacks on the country and increase the number of spies.

'We are all Parisians'

Parliamentarians gave Hollande a standing ovation on Monday before spontaneously singing the "Marseillaise" national anthem in a show of political unity after the most deadly attack France has seen since World War II.

Speaking in Turkey at the same time as Hollande, Obama called Friday's attacks a "terrible and sickening setback," but he maintained that the US-led coalition was making progress, saying he remained cautious about deeper military engagement in Syria.

Kerry came to Paris to pay respects to the victims of the attacks, declaring: "Tonight we are all Parisians."

In remarks to the US embassy staff before going to meet Hollande, he said: "We are engaged in a struggle here — a struggle of a generation. We are not choosing randomly to go to war."

Hollande said he would create 5,000 jobs in the security forces, boost prison service staff by 2,500, beef up the depleted unit of anti-terrorism magistrates and avoid cuts in defense spending before 2019.

He also said he would ask parliament to extend for three months a state of emergency he declared on Friday, which gives security forces sweeping powers to search and detain suspects.

Prosecutors have identified five of the seven dead assailants — four Frenchmen and a foreigner fingerprinted in Greece last month. His role in the carnage has fueled speculation that Islamic State took advantage of a recent wave of refugees fleeing Syria to slip militants into Europe.

In addition to the suspect on the run, the police believe that at least four other people helped organize the mayhem.

Manhunt

French investigators believe the Paris attacks may have been ordered by Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian national now living in Syria, where he has become an internet propagandist for Islamic State under the nom de guerre Abu Omar al-Belgiki — the Belgian.

The Belgian media has reported that Salah Abdeslam spent time in jail for robbery five years ago alongside Abaaoud.

Police officials in France named two of the French attackers as Ismael Omar Mostefai, 29, from Chartres, southwest of Paris, and Samy Amimour, 28, from the Paris suburb of Drancy.

Valls refused to comment on media reports that Amimour managed to slip back into France unnoticed despite being the object of an arrest warrant for terrorism-related activity.

France believes Mostefai, a petty criminal who never served time in jail, visited Syria in 2013-2014. His radicalization underlined the trouble the police face trying to capture an elusive enemy raised in its own cities.

Latest official figures estimate that 520 French nationals are in the Syrian and Iraqi war zones, including 116 women. Some 137 have died in the fighting, 250 have returned home, and around 700 have plans to travel to join the jihadist factions.

The Belgian soccer federation said in a statement on Monday it was calling off an international friendly due to be played against Spain in Brussels on Tuesday for security reasons.

Another friendly between France and England was set to go ahead in London, with British fans promising to sing the French "Marseillaise" anthem in solidarity with France.

(Additional reporting by Laurence Frost, Maya Nikolaeva, Julien Ponthus, Patrick Vignal and David Brunnstrom; Writing by Paul Taylor; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

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British Prime Minister David Cameron is trying to convince the government to extend British airstrikes against ISIS to Syria.

Speaking to the House of Commons on Tuesday afternoon, he took the unusual step of saying he will personally respond to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee report that said there should be no British airstrikes in Syria without a coherent international strategy.

Cameron told the Commons that following the terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday, Britain "cannot expect others to carry the burden of protecting our country."

ISIS have a big presence in Syria and France has conducted extensive bombing campaigns there in the wake of Friday's attacks.

Britain's leader of the opposition Jeremy Corbyn is extremely skeptical about getting involved militarily in Syria and responded to Cameron by asserting that Britain must secure UN approval before extending the airstrikes. Cameron doesn't want to do this because it would need the approval of Russian President Vladimir Putin

You can watch the video of Cameron's Statement below:

RAW Embed

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The burgeoning dispute over the issue of resettling Syrian refugees could complicate plans to keep the federal government from shutting down in December.

President Barack Obama's administration is planning to resettle about 10,000 refugees from the war-torn country during the 2016 fiscal year, which began October 1. But two dozen governors across the country have said over the past two days that they will oppose letting Syrian refugees into their states.

And calls have increased to strip funding for Obama's program from a crucial spending bill that needs to pass by December 11 to keep the government funded. That could lead to a fight with the White House, which has defended its plans in recent days, that could precede a shutdown.

"There are so many amendments — Planned Parenthood topped the list before the Syrian issue — that the omnibus budget bill could stall after Congress returns from its Thanksgiving break," said Greg Valliere, the chief global strategist at Horizon Investments. "Still another stopgap bill, extending until December 18, is likely ... and beyond that, no one is finalizing holiday plans."

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) sent a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee on Monday that requested the cancellation of what he called a "blank check" for refugee resettlement in the government-funding bill.

Sessions said his subcommittee, the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, had identified at least 26 foreign-born individuals in the US "charged with or convicted of terrorism over approximately the last year alone."

"The barbaric attacks in Paris — an assault on civilization — add immense new urgency," he wrote in the letter.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security, also sent a letter to Obama calling on him to immediately suspend the admission of Syrian refugees into the US.

And Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a presidential candidate, said he would introduce legislation to bar Syrian refugees from entering into the US. Cruz has been a recurring presence in these budget battles, including the 2013 fight over the Affordable Care Act that led to a 16-day government shutdown.

"Sessions/Cruz will probably want to push for riders related to the refugee crisis," a Democratic Senate aide told Business Insider. "And if they do, yes I think it jeopardizes [government] funding. Depends whether Sessions/Cruz convince other [Republicans] to join them."

Indeed, the issue is already permeating throughout the presidential campaign trail. On Monday, former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas (R) suggested that newly minted House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) should "step down" if he did not "reject the importation of those fleeing the Middle East."

Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson sent a letter to Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), urging them to move legislation that would strip funding for refugees from Syria.

Ryan said Tuesday that no Syrian refugees should be admitted unless "we can be 100% confident that they are not here to do us harm."

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, who has made immigration a central theme of his campaign, has also railed for months about the Syrian-refugee program, saying refugees could constitute a "Trojan horse."

Stephen Worley, a spokesman for the Senate Appropriations Committee, said refugee policies were one of numerous issues Congress would have to work through with the White House in the budget-negotiation process.

"In the coming weeks, the committee expects to be part of the effort by Congress and the White House to work through these issues to ensure that US refugee policies are in our national interest, will protect the American people, and be consistent with American values," Worley said.

The White House has defended its plans, saying the administration is thoroughly vetting potential refugees and stressing the need to do its part to help its allies in resettlement. Germany, for example, is planning to take in about 500,000 Syrian refugees annually over the next several years.

Obama has not weighed in on whether he would veto a potential Republican-backed budget bill hamstringing the US' ability to accept refugees. But he gave a vehement defense of the administration's plan to take in more refugees on Monday, and he forcefully rejected Republican plans to the contrary as "shameful."

"When I hear folks say that, 'Well, maybe we should just admit the Christians, but not the Muslims,'" Obama said. "When I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which a person who is fleeing a war-torn country is admitted, when some of those folks themselves come from families who benefited from protection when they were fleeing from political persecution, that's shameful."

The president added, "That's not American."

SEE ALSO: A slew of states are saying they'll refuse Syrian refugees, but they might have 'no legal authority'

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Within 48 hours of the November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris, France had already mobilized its air force to strike back at ISIS.

French President François Hollande immediately declared the Paris attack "an act of war."French Prime Minister Manuel Valls echoed the sentiment, vowing to "annihilate the enemies of the republic."

France has one of the most forward-deployed militaries in the world, with around 3,000 troops across Africa. France is the only country other than the US with a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, and is one of only nine countries with nuclear weapons.

Leaders around the world, including US President Barack Obama, have pledged to stand "shoulder to shoulder" with France.

But France has plenty of muscle of its own, too.

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France has over 215,000 active-duty troops across all branches of its military.

France has a network of military bases across Africa.

For more information, here's a recent history of French military interventions in Africa.

France's navy is 42,100 strong, with 103 surface vessels and 10 submarines.

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