France steps up efforts to crush Islamic State

French warplanes pounded Islamic State targets and Russia vowed to ramp up its bombing campaign in Syria yesterday as the devastating attacks on Paris galvanised international resolve to destroy the jihadists and end the Syrian war.

In the Syrian city of Raqa, the stronghold of IS, French warplanes destroyed a command centre and training centre in its second series of airstrikes in 24 hours, AFP reports quoting Prime Minister Manuel Valls.

French President Francois Hollande said Monday that the Paris attacks were "decided and planned in Syria, prepared and organised in Belgium (and) perpetrated on our soil with French complicity".

He also said the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle would be deployed to the eastern Mediterranean to "triple our capacity to take action" against IS in Syria.

Meanwhile, France has mobilised 115,000 security personnel in the wake of the attacks, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve has said, reports BBC online.

Cazeneuve said 128 more raids on suspected militants were carried  out.

A huge manhunt is under way for one of the suspects, Salah Abdeslam. He is believed to have fled across the border to his native Belgium.

Police probing the Friday's attacks have been searching premises they believe were used by the attackers. Salah Abdeslam, the suspected eighth gunman who is now the subject of an international manhunt, rented out an apartment and two hotel rooms.

German police said they arrested two more people yesterday near the western city of Aachen, on the Belgian border, in an operation linked to the attacks, after arresting two women and one man earlier in the day, according to Reuters.

'BIG TRANSITION'

In a grieving Paris, US Secretary of State John Kerry said a "big transition" in Syria was probably only weeks away as he expressed solidarity with the French nation after IS gunmen and suicide bombers massacred 129 people in the capital on Friday night.

Kerry said an agreement between deeply divided countries such as Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia on a path to elections in Syria at talks held in Vienna Saturday was a "gigantic step", and he expected rapid progress.

"We are weeks away conceivably from the possibility of a big transition for Syria," he said.

The quickening political process came as Hollande vowed to pursue IS mercilessly for their "acts of war" and Russia sought vengeance after finally confirming it believed a bomb attack did bring down a Russian passenger jet over Egypt last month that killed 224 people.

The IS group which operates out of Iraq and Syria claimed responsibility for downing the airliner as well as a bombing in Beirut last week.

A French jihadist named Fabien Clain made an audio recording of the terror group statement claiming the Paris attacks that was published online, a source close to the investigation told AFP.

The 35-year-old is a veteran of radical Islamist networks in the southern French city of Toulouse and was close to Mohamed Merah who shot dead seven people, including three Jewish children, in 2012.

Clain was convicted in 2009 of recruiting jihadists and sentenced to five years in prison, after which he left for Syria.

"My sense is that everybody understands that... we have to step up our efforts to hit them (IS) at the core where they're planning these things," said Kerry.

"We've agreed to exchange more information, and I'm convinced that over the course of the next weeks, Daesh will feel even greater pressure," he added, using another term for IS.

Hollande will visit Washington next week to meet President Barack Obama, and is also planning a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the coming days.

And as the probe into the horror intensified, French police carried out more than 100 raids for a second night running, as a manhunt continued for 26-year-old Salah Abdeslam, one of two Belgium-based brothers implicated.

PARIS GRIEVES

In Paris, stunned residents continued to flock to shrines of candles and flowers, while photographs of smiling young victims have been pasted at attack sites or outside their places of work.

The city is palpably more shaken than after the January attacks which killed 17 people at Charlie Hebdo magazine and a Jewish supermarket, but many have defiantly returned to sidewalk terrace cafes where they can be heard poring over the details of the assault.

But a shadow still hangs over the City of Light four days after IS suicide bombers and gunmen struck as Parisians watched a France-Germany football match, a concert by Californian group Eagles of Death Metal, or enjoyed a night out at restaurants and sidewalk cafes.

RUSSIA STRIKES

Russia yesterday also staged a "significant number" of air strikes on Raqa.

Russia struck the Islamic State stronghold of Raqa in Syria yesterday with a "significant number" of strikes that included long-range bombers and sea-launched cruise missiles, US defense officials said.

Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said that powerful long-range bombers had been used to strike targets around the jihadist strongholds of Raqa and Deir Ezzor, and to fire cruise missiles at Idlib and Aleppo regions.

Russia will also send an extra 25 long-range planes to conduct Syria strikes, Reuters reports citing the chief of Russian general staff.

The focus of the investigation was Salah Abdeslam, whose sibling Brahim blew himself up outside a bar in Paris, seriously injuring one person.

Police found a second car rented by Salah, while his brother was found to have rented an apartment in the gritty Parisian suburb of Bobigny a few days before the attack.

Investigators believe Belgian jihadist Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who is based in Syria and knew Salah Abdeslam, may be the mastermind of the attacks.

Five of the Paris assailants have already been identified, but it is not known how many fled.

FAKE PASSPORT?

A passport found near the body of one of the Stade de France suicide bombers may have belonged to a Syrian regime soldier killed several months ago, a source close to the investigation told AFP.

The passport is in the name of Ahmad al-Mohammad, born September 10, 1990 in the Syrian city of Idlib.

French investigators say all indications point towards the fact he was a soldier loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity to AFP, said the passport was either taken or fabricated based on a real identity.

It was registered on the Greek island of Leros on October 3, and was seen again in Serbia and Croatia in the following days.

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere also said it appeared to be a red herring planted by IS.

"There are indications it is a false trail," he said, adding that "it still cannot be ruled out that a terrorist headed for Europe and to France, probably via Germany."

"It therefore remains to be determined whether it was a refugee sent by IS to Europe to carry out an attack, or whether it is a cunning chess move by the IS, which laid this trail in order to scare people," the minister said.

GERMAN-DUTCH FRIENDLY CALLED OFF

Germany's friendly with the Netherlands on Tuesday has been called off because of a "concrete security threat" against the city of Hannover.

Evacuation of the Hannover Stadium, which was hosting the match, began less than two hours before kick-off.

The city's president of police Volker Kluwe told the BBC "there were plans for some kind of explosion".

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was set to attend the match at the 49,000-capacity HDI Arena.

Belgium's friendly with Spain on Tuesday in Brussels was called off on Monday because of security fears in the wake of last week's attacks in Paris.

England's match against France at Wembley on Tuesday night is going ahead, with tributes to be paid to the 129 people killed in Paris on Friday.