U.S. issues travel warning amid terrorist threats

The U.S. has issued a travel warning on American people for the first time since the Paris mayhem on Nov. 13.

The U.S. Department of State has posted news about a travel warning on its website that terrorists groups such as ISIS, Al Qaeda, and Boko Haram and individual terrorists are planning to launch attacks on multiple locations. The travel warning will be issued worldwide, running for three months until February 24 next year.

The step comes as millions of Americans are preparing for overseas trips over the Thanksgiving holidays that will start on Thursday.

The French intelligence service warned the Vatican against the risk that Pope Francis may be targeted for terrorist attacks during his tour to three African countries from Wednesday through next Monday.

The French nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle on Monday began to launch large-scale air assaults against the military facilities of ISIS. General Pierre de Villiers, the French Chief of Defense Staff, was on board the carrier to command the operation personally. The French Defense Ministry announced that the Rappel fighter jets scrambled from the flattop destroyed the main targets such as oil facilities, command centers, and boot camps in major cities like Ramadi, Mosul, and Raqqa. The U.S. military said Monday that it destroyed 283 oil tanks at an oil field in the eastern part of Syria by mobilizing the A-10 Thunderbolt and AC-130H Specter gunship, focusing on cutting off the financial pipelines to the terrorist group.

French police authorities found Monday what appeared to be a suicide bombing vest and embarked on an investigation. A street cleaner found the vest in the southern Paris suburb of Montrouge, and reported it to the police.

The French daily Le Figaro proposed the possibility that Salah Abdeslam (26), the main suspect of the Paris attack who remains still at large, dropped the vest there, citing the fact that his cell phone signal was last detected near Montrouge.

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, on the other hand, said that Brussels will maintain the highest terrorist alert at Grade 4 at least for another week.