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France to Continue ISIS Strikes Despite Kidnapping

CBN

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French Prime Minister Manuel Valls says his country will continue bombing Islamic State targets despite threats against a French citizen abducted in North Africa.

An al Qaeda splinter group kidnapped 55-year-old Herve Gourdel, a French alpine guide, in Algeria on Monday.

The group, which calls itself Jund al-Khilafah (Soldiers of the Caliphate), released a video threatening to kill Gourdel unless French President Francois Hollande stops his country's air attacks against ISIS within 24 hours.

The group said it was responding to Islamic State spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnai's call to target Americans and Europeans.

Reuters quoted Adnai saying the U.S.-led bombing campaign "will be broken and defeated just as all your previous campaigns were broken and defeated."

Meanwhile, Valls made it clear that while authorities were doing everything possible to secure Gourdel's release, France would not negotiate with his captors.

"If we cede, if we retreat one inch, that would hand victory" to the jihadists, Valls said.

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