MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday ordered the Russian missile cruiser Moskva, currently in the Mediterranean, to start cooperating with the French military on operations in Syria.

Putin's statement came as Russia's defense minister said its warplanes have fired cruise missiles on militant positions in Syria's Idlib and Aleppo provinces. The Islamic State group has positions in Aleppo province; Idlib has the presence of the Nusra Front militant group.

Hours earlier, Russia had acknowledged that a terrorist bomb was responsible for the Oct. 31 crash of a Russian airliner that killed all 224 people aboard. IS claimed responsibility for downing the airliner.

The plane crash and the weekend wave of terrorist attacks in Paris clearly have raised Russia's determination to fight IS, although concern remains in the West that its Syria airstrikes are also targeting rebels who are opposed to Syrian President Bashar Assad but not affiliated with radical groups.

Putin said a French aircraft carrier task force is to approach the Moskva soon and the cruiser is to "cooperate with them as with allies."

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu also told a briefing conducted for Putin on Tuesday that Russian bombers hit Islamic State positions in Raqqa and Deir al-Zour.

Shoigu said the cruise missiles that hit the Aleppo and Idlib positions were fired from supersonic Tu-160 bombers and from Tu-95s, long-distance turboprop strategic bombers that started from Russian territory.

As Russia's campaign in Syria intensifies, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov criticized the United States for pursuing what he said was a contradictory and confusing policy in Syria.

In remarks in a Russian TV documentary shown Tuesday, Lavrov said that analysis of U.S. attacks on Islamic State militants in Syria over the past year indicates that the attacks are sparing the IS units that would pose the most threat to the Syrian army and Assad. The U.S. wants to see Assad removed from power.

Lavrov said this means that Washington is effectively "sitting on two chairs."

Official: Minneapolis police shooting vids won't be released

Associated Press Videos
Protests in Minneapolis After Police Shoot Black Man

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — State investigators looking into the fatal shooting of a black Minneapolis man by police during a scuffle have several partial videos of the incident but won't release them at this time, despite demands from protesters, an official said Tuesday.

Jamar ONeal Clark, 24, died Monday evening, a day after he was shot by police during an early morning dispute, the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said Tuesday.

Some witnesses said Clark was handcuffed when he was shot. Police initially said he was not handcuffed, but authorities later said handcuffs were at the scene and they were trying to determine whether Clark was restrained. His death sparked protests including one Monday night in which hundreds of people blocked traffic on an interstate highway, leading to 42 arrests.

The BCA is investigating the case, and federal agencies agreed Tuesday night to Mayor Betsy Hodges' request for a civil rights investigation. That satisfied one of the protesters' demands, but investigators haven't met two others: the release of any video and the identities of the officers involved.

The federal investigation will be conducted by the FBI and will be concurrent to the BCA's probe. In a statement, federal authorities asked for cooperation from any witnesses and urged calm during the investigation.

Police said the incident began when they were called to north Minneapolis around 12:45 a.m. Sunday following a report of an assault. When they arrived, a man was interfering with paramedics helping the victim, police said. Officers tried to calm him, but there was a struggle. At some point, an officer fired at least once, hitting the man, police said.

Activists Want Release of Police Shooting VideoPlay video

BCA Superintendent Drew Evans said at a news conference Tuesday that investigators have video from several sources, including an ambulance, a mobile police camera stationed in the area, public housing cameras and citizens' cellphones.

But he said none of the videos captured the entire incident and none will be released while the investigation is ongoing to avoid possibly tainting it.

Authorities have said the officers involved weren't wearing body cameras. Evans said there is no police dashcam video of the shooting. He declined to release any identifying information about the officers, including their race, pending interviews with them.

When asked if the video shows whether Clark was handcuffed, Department of Public Safety spokesman Bruce Gordon reiterated that the video captures a portion of the incident, but not everything, and said officials can't discuss specifics because it could potentially taint witness statements.

Evans said at the news conference that there were handcuffs at the scene and authorities were still investigating.

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Protesters block a portion of I-94 blocking traffic on Monday, Nov. 16, 2015 in Minneapolis. Hundred …

"We're still examining whether or not they were on Mr. Clark or whether or not they were just (fallen) at the scene. That's what we're trying to ascertain," he said.

Evans also confirmed that Clark was unarmed. Pressed on the timeline for results of the BCA investigation, Evans said two to four months is typical but that the Clark case "has been given top priority."

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office ruled Tuesday that Clark died from a gunshot wound to the head. Clark's father previously told The Associated Press that his son suffered a single gunshot wound over his left eye.

Clark's brother, Jamine Robinson, 32, of Rochester, told the AP earlier Tuesday that family members had gone to the hospital Monday evening to take Clark off life support. He said he didn't go because he didn't want to see his brother in a hospital bed.

"I want the officer to be arrested, prosecuted and put in jail for eternity. Life without parole," said Robinson.

In seeking the civil rights investigation on Monday, Hodges said she was concerned about "transparency and community confidence." She expressed faith in the state investigation but said the city needs "all the tools we have available to us."

Protesters have set up tents around the 4th Precinct station near where the shooting occurred and said they won't leave until authorities release the video and officers' identities.

The protests are just the latest expression of tension between the department and minorities in the city.

The rocky relations have led to discussions between police and minorities and the creation of task forces designed to quell concerns. This spring, Minneapolis was selected for a federal Justice Department program to rebuild trust between police and the communities they patrol.

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This story has been corrected to reflect that there were 42 protesters arrested at Monday night's highway demonstration, not more than 50.

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Follow Amy Forliti on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/amyforliti . More of her work can be found at http://www.bigstory.ap.org/content/amy-forliti.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Two Air France flights bound for Paris from the U.S. had to be diverted Tuesday night because of anonymous threats received after they had taken off, but both planes landed safely in North America, officials said.

One plane, Air France Flight 65 from Los Angeles International Airport to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, was diverted to Salt Lake City International Airport, Air France said in a statement. At about the same time a second flight, Air France 55, took off from Dulles International Airport outside Washington and was diverted to Halifax on Canada's East Coast, officials said.

Passengers got off both planes safely and were taken to terminals. Authorities in both the U.S. and Canada were preparing to search the planes with dogs, officials said.

The FBI was taking over the investigation of the Salt Lake City plane, which was diverted because of a threat received by phone after takeoff, Salt Lake airport spokeswoman Bianca Shreeve said.

Keith Rosso of Santa Monica, California, a passenger on the flight from Los Angeles with his fiancee, said "everything was smooth, everything was great, everything was going swell" for the first two hours of the flight, then things changed.

"The flight attendants quickly came by and cleared plates, then there was an announcement that we were making an emergency landing and that the flight attendants were trained exactly for situations like this," Rosso told The Associated Press by phone from the airport in Salt Lake City.

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An Air France plane sits on the tarmac after it was diverted to Salt Lake City International Airport …

He said he looked at the flight monitor at his seat and saw that "we had made a pretty sharp right turn — we had been almost near Canada — toward Salt Lake City."

Rosso said an FBI agent interviewed the passengers after the landing.

In Halifax, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were leading the investigation.

RCMP Constable Mark Skinner said there were 262 people onboard that plane, which also received an anonymous threat. No further details on that threat were released.

"We received a complaint of a bomb threat and we responded to it," Skinner said. "They have to go to through the plane. I don't think there is any timeline on when that plane might get back in the air."

The threats came after last week's attacks in Paris that killed 129 people and heightened security concerns around the world.

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Associated Press Writers Stepanie Siek in New York, Robert Gillies in Toronto and Andrew Dalton in Phoenix contributed to this report.

A worker prepares to place cones around a downed tree that damaged power lines and blocked a road during a strong storm in Seattle, Washington November 17, 2015. REUTERS/David Ryder

By Eric M. Johnson

SEATTLE (Reuters) - At least two people were killed in Washington state and about 360,000 homes and businesses in the Seattle-area were without power on Tuesday as a storm packing powerful winds downed trees and triggered mudslides, local authorities said.

A wide swath of the Puget Sound region was under flood watches and warnings through Wednesday afternoon, the National Weather Service said.

The storm, which packed wind gusts up to 49 miles per hour (79 kph), toppled trees and power lines, leaving roads littered with debris. At least two people were confirmed to have died in storm-related accidents, authorities said.

A motorist was killed near the city of Monroe, northeast of Seattle, when a rain-soaked tree fell from a cliff onto the driver's car, said Snohomish County fire chief Merlin Halverson.

"Many roads are closed from downed trees, active power lines, flood waters," Halverson said. "It's a hell of mess here."

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Catherine Monro leans into a gust of wind during a strong storm in Seattle, Washington November 17, …

In Spokane, in eastern Washington, local police said a fallen tree had landed on a woman, killing her. The Seattle Times reports a third person died in the same area when a downed tree struck her car.

More than 360,000 customers were without power in the Puget Sound region, a local utilities reported late on Tuesday. Puget Sound Energy, which supplies customers in parts of Seattle and its suburbs, reported about 210,000 outages late on Tuesday.

To the north, in Snohomish County, the public utility district said about 150,000 customers were left without power after a "huge windblast," the utility said.

The storm forced the closure of a bridge over the Hood Canal, northwest of Seattle, and gusts up to 49 mph were recorded on the SR 520 bridge over Lake Washington, which links Seattle to suburbs such as Redmond, according to the Washington State Department of Transportation.

North of Seattle, along roads that traverse the Cascade mountains, a mudslide blocked State Route 20 and downed trees and flooding closed parts of U.S. Route 2, the Department of Transportation said.

King County, in which Seattle is located, reported moderate flooding for the Snoqualmie River, which runs through the county.

The National Weather Service has forecast rain and wind for much of the week.

(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Additional reporting by Victoria Cavaliere in Los Angeles; Editing by Daniel Wallis, Bill Rigby, Toni Reinhold and Diane Craft; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Washington state storm turns deadly

A powerful storm leaves two people dead and 360,000 Seattle-area homes and businesses without power.
'It's a hell of mess here'