PARIS: Russian Presi­dent Vladimir Putin has asked France to draw up a map of where pro-West groups fighting the militant Islamic State (IS) operate in Syria in order not to bomb them, France’s foreign minister said on Friday.

French President Fran­cois Hollande and Putin agr­ eed during talks in Moscow on Thursday to exchange in­ t­el­ligence on Islamic State and other rebel gro­ups to improve the effectiveness of their aerial bom­bing campaigns in Syria.

“He asked us to draw up a map of forces that are not terrorists and are fighting Daesh (Islamic State). He committed to not bombing them once we’ve provided that,” Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told a television channel after accompanying Hollande to Moscow.

The West has accused Moscow of targeting mostly pro-West rebel groups fighting Syrian President Bashar al Assad instead of IS.

France has stepped up its aerial bombing campaign of Islamic State targets in Syria since the group claimed responsibility for attacks in Paris on Nov 13 that killed 130 people.

The militants have also claimed the downing of a Russian airliner that broke up over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula on Oct 31, killing all 224 people on board.

“There is now one point which everyone agrees and that is the objective of destroying Daesh,” Fabius said, referring to the Arabic acronym for Islamic State. “I think on that we are progressing.”

He added that immediate priorities for both sides in the coming weeks would be to free Raqqa, the IS’s Syrian stronghold, as well as targeting oil infrastructure controlled by the group. “It is the neurological centre of Daesh, where atta­cks, especially those in Fra­nce, originated,” he said.

ASSAD’S FATE: How­ever, in what could prove a stumbling block to co­o­p­eration between Moscow and the West, Presidents Putin and Hollande remained at odds on Thursday over the fate of Syrian President Bashar al Assad.

Assad is an ally of Russia but Western countries, Turkey and Saudi Arabia blame him for Syria’s five-year civil war and want him removed from power.

“If we want to move towards a free, united ... Syria, it cannot be that he (Assad) who is at the origin of 300,000 deaths and millions of refugees can lead (Syria) ... Assad cannot be the future of his people,” Fabius said.

Hollande said in Moscow Paris was ready to increase its support for groups fighting Islamic State on the ground. French officials have said they are studying whether to deploy special forces to assist them, a measure that was discussed with US President Barack Obama in Washington on Tuesday.

The United States has already sent special forces while the French foreign minister said Paris could follow suit.

Published in Dawn, November 28th, 2015