French warplanes launch more strikes against IS targets in Syria

PARIS, Nov. 17 -- France launched more airstrikes against Islamic State (IS) targets in Syria overnight, pounding a command center and a recruitment center in their stronghold of Raqqa, the Defense Ministry said Tuesday.

Six Mirage 2000 and four Rafale fighter jets took off from Jordan and the United Arab Emirates on Monday night to carry out the attacks, said the ministry in a press release.

It was the second night that the command center and the recruitment center in Raqqa were attacked, it added.

The intensive strikes against the IS came after the terrorist group claimed responsibility for Friday's deadly attacks in Paris, which left at least 129 people dead and more than 300 others wounded.

In an extraordinary address to the two chambers of parliament, French President Francois Hollande pledged that the country would intensify the assaults on the IS.

"We will continue the strikes in the coming weeks," he said, adding that France's aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle would be deployed to the eastern Mediterranean, which would "triple our capacity of action."

"There will be no respite, no truce," said Hollande, who has declared "a war against jihadist terrorism which threatens the whole world."

He said he would meet his U.S. and Russian counterparts, Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin, in the coming days in order to build a stronger global coalition to combat the IS, which seized major cities in Syria and Iraq and threatened national security in Western countries and their Arab allies.