France, Britain to step up fight against ISIL

By Nicholas Vinocur

In Paris, Cameron pledges ‘solidarity’ and will push to widen UK airstrikes.

PARIS — France and Britain will cooperate more closely to fight terrorism at home and intensify their efforts to destroy the ISIL group in Iraq and Syria, the leaders of both nations said Monday in Paris.
Ten days after 130 people were killed in a series of terrorist attacks in Paris, French President François Hollande and British Prime Minister David Cameron paid their respects to the victims near the Bataclan, the concert hall where the worst of the killing was carried out.

“We are going to intensify our strikes,” Hollande said after an early-morning meeting with Cameron at the Elysée presidential palace. “We are going to choose targets that will do as much damage as possible.”
The two leaders also said they would improve intelligence-sharing between Paris and London, after several terrorists were able to slip in and out of Europe undetected by border security.
Cameron expressed “solidarity” with the French people after the attacks and vowed to push for approval from the British Parliament to widen his country’s bombing campaign against ISIL, which is currently confined to Iraq, to target assets in Syria as well.
“I firmly support the action that President Hollande has taken to strike ISIL in Syria and it is my firm conviction that Britain do the same,” said Cameron. “Of course that will be a decision for Parliament to make.”
Cameron has pledged to set out a “comprehensive strategy” to fight against the ISIL terrorist group, also known as ISIS, after the G20 summit in Turkey. A vote on the plan to extend airstrikes is expected before Christmas, although Cameron is moving carefully to ensure he has broad support to avoid a repeat of 2013, when he failed to gain approval for airstrikes against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
While Cameron has a narrow majority in British Parliament, his plan has a good chance of succeeding given support from some Labour MPs and relatively minor opposition to wider airstrikes in Tory ranks.
France has already ramped up airstrikes against ISIL in Syria after the November 13 attacks, moving its Charles de Gaulle nuclear-powered aircraft carrier into the eastern Mediterranean Sea to support the bombing mission.