Hollande near French jet (file).
Hollande near French jet (file).Reuters

France launched new airstrikes Tuesday on the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa, in north-central Syria, while French police carried out 128 anti-terrorism raids throughout France overnight.

French military spokesman Col. Gilles Jaron said the latest airstrikes on Raqqa destroyed a command post and training camp, according to news agencies.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said 115,000 police, gendarmes and soldiers have been mobilized to protect French citizens, four days after ISIS massacred 129 people in Paris. He added that “the majority of those who were involved in this attack were unknown to our services."

A state of emergency was declared after Friday’s multi-pronged attack, and police carried out more than 160 raids throughout France Sunday night.

President François Hollande promised an unforgiving campaign against Islamic State and proposed changes to France’s constitution to help fight terrorist threats, in an address to Parliament Monday.

It is not about containing but about destroying that organization,” Hollande said. “They are not out of our reach.” Friday’s acts of war were decided and planned in Syria,” he told parliament. “They were organized in Belgium and perpetrated on our soil with French complicity with one specific goal: to sow fear and to divide us.” Syria, he stated, had become “the biggest factory of terrorism the world has ever known.”

Secretary of State John Kerry, on an unscheduled stop in Paris, said Tuesday after meeting Hollande that Islamic State was losing territory in the Middle East and that the Western-backed coalition is making advances.

“We agreed to exchange more information and I’m convinced that over the course of the next weeks, Daesh will feel greater pressure," he stated. "They are feeling it today. They felt it yesterday. They felt it in the past weeks. We gained more territory. Daesh has less territory,” Kerry said, referring to the Arabic name for Islamic State.

Authorities believe that Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a 28-year-old Belgian national of Moroccan descent, may have played a coordinating role in the Paris plot from Syria. The Washington Post reported that a French official familiar with the case described Abaaoud as the “guru” of some of the Paris terrorists, including Salah Abdeslam, 26, who is now the subject of an international dragnet.