US boosting intel sharing with France in fight against IS
Pentagon says military personnel authorized to share information quickly with their French counterparts following Paris attacks
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WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is implementing a new intelligence-sharing arrangement with France to more readily and quickly share military planning regarding the campaign against the Islamic State group.
After President Barack Obama announced the arrangement to reporters in Turkey, the Pentagon says Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper have authorized military personnel to share information quickly with their French counterparts.
Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said the action was taken in light of the terror attacks in Paris.
Cook did not provide details about the kinds of intelligence that would be shared. But he said the new instructions build on efforts made over the past year to work more closely with French military, intelligence and security services to target the Islamic State.
President Francois Hollande unveiled France’s riposte to Islamic State on Monday after its atrocities in Paris, vowing tough new anti-terror measures and intensified bombing of Syria in a historic speech to parliament. Destroying IS is a global concern, he said.
Friday’s “acts of war… were decided and planned in Syria, prepared and organized in Belgium (and) perpetrated on our soil with French complicity,” Hollande told an extraordinary meeting of both houses of parliament in Versailles.
“The need to destroy Daesh (IS)… concerns the entire international community,” he told lawmakers, who burst into an emotional rendition of the La Marseillaise national anthem after his speech — only the second time in more than 150 years a French president has addressed a joint session of parliament.
The Times of Israel Community.